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respectable-username · 3 years

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🔐 Why You (Probably) Don't Need A VPN

A rant by a software engineer sick of VPN ads from her favourite YouTubers

TL;DR:

Here are some legitimate reasons the average internet user might want to use a VPN:

To connect to their company's internal network

To bypass the Great Firewall of China (or other types of website blocks at country or organisation level)

To watch Netflix etc as if you were in another country

Here are absolutely rubbish reasons to use a VPN:

Privacy

And today, I'll tell you why.

Hang on, won't a VPN stop hackers from stealing my passwords?

I mean, it does encrypt the web traffic coming from your device.

You know what else encrypts web traffic coming from your device? Your browser.

Yes, in the year 2021, pretty much all websites on the internet are accessed over HTTPS. The "S" stands for "secure", as in "your request will be securely encrypted". If your browser is using HTTPS, nobody can capture the data you're sending over the internet. More detail in the "I like too much detail" section at the bottom of this post.

It's very easy to check if you are using HTTPS by looking at your URL bar. In most browsers, it will have a lock on it if secure:

(From top left to bottom right: Chrome on iOS, Safari on iOS, Chrome on Windows, Edge on Windows, Firefox on Windows, and Safari on Mac. Screenshots reflect the UI at the time this post was written. Oh gosh this has taken over 4 hours to write.)

But isn't moar encryption better? What if somebody breaks HTTPS?

For starters, nobody's breaking your HTTPS, and there isn't any benefit from double encrypting. This is because of the maths behind encryption/decryption!

Encryption works kinda like a lock and key, except the lock is maths and the key is a special number only known to the person allowed to unlock the information.

The important thing is, without the key, all the locked data looks like complete and utter garbage. Completely unusable. Barely distinguishable from random noise. There's absolutely no way to tell what the original data was.

The other important thing is that the key is nearly unguessable. As in, with current technology, will generally take more than the lifetime of the universe to guess by chance. And when technology gets faster, we just make the numbers bigger again until they're once again secure.

For any major website you use, they will use a strong encryption algorithm (ie lock) with big numbers so your keys will be strong enough to withstand an attack. This means your data is safe as long as that lock icon is in your URL bar.

A VPN will not make the existing garble any more garbled. The extra $10/month or whatever you're paying for does not buy you any extra protection.

If you want to know more about how encryption and HTTPS in particular work, see the "I like too much detail" section at the end of this post.

Something something viruses

How's a VPN going to stop viruses? It controls the path your internet traffic takes, not the content that gets sent down that path. I guess it could block some known virus-giving hosts? But if it's known to the VPN provider, it's probably also known to the built-in antivirus on your computer who can block it for you.

(Oh yeah, 3rd party antivirus is another thing that's not worth paying for these days. Microsoft's built-in Windows Defender is as good as the third party options, and something something Macs don't get viruses easily because of how they're architected.)

Honestly though, keep your software up to date, don't click on anything suspicious, don't open files from sources you don't trust, and you'll be right most of the time.

And keep your software up to date. Then update your software. Hey, did I mention keeping your stuff updated? Update! Now! It only takes a few minutes. Please update to the latest version of your software I'm begging you. It's the number 1 way to protect yourself from viruses and other malware. Most major software attacks could have been prevented if people just updated their damn software!

But my ISP is spying on me!

Ok, it is true that there are TWO bits of data that HTTPS can't and won't hide. Those are:

The source of a request (your IP)

What website that request is going to (the website's IP)

These are the bits of information that routers use to know where to send your data, so of course they can't be hidden as the data is moving across the internet. And people can see that information very easily if they want to.

Note: this will show which website you're going to, but not which page you're looking at, and not the content of that page. So it will show that you were on Tumblr, but will not show anyone that you're still reading SuperWhoLock content in 2021.

It's this source/destination information that VPNs hide, which is why they can be used to bypass website blocks and region locks.

By using a VPN, those sniffing traffic on your side of the VPN will just show you connecting to the VPN, not the actual website you want. That means you can read AO3 at work/school without your boss/teachers knowing (unless they look over your shoulder of course).

As for those sniffing on the websites end, including the website itself, they will see the VPN as the source of the connection, not you. So if you're in the US and using a VPN node in the UK, Netflix will see you as being in the UK and show you their British library rather than the American one.

If this is what you're using a VPN for and you think the price is fair, then by all means keep doing it! This is 100% what VPNs are good for.

HOWEVER, and this is a big "however", if it's your ISP you're trying to hide your internet traffic from, then you will want to think twice before using a VPN.

Let me put it this way. Without a VPN, your ISP knows every website you connect to and when. With a VPN, do you know who has that exact same information? The VPN provider. Sure, many claim to not keep logs, but do you really trust the people asking for you to send them all your data for a fee to not just turn around and sell your data on for a profit, or worse?

In effect, you're trading one snooper for another. One snooper is heavily regulated, in many jurisdictions must obey net neutrality, and is already getting a big fee from you regardless of where you browse. The other isn't. Again, it's all a matter of who you trust more.

For me personally, I trust my ISP more than a random VPN provider, if for no other reason than my ISP is an old enough company with enough inertia and incompetence that I don't think they could organise to sell my data even if they wanted to. And with the amount of money I'm paying them per month, they've only got everything to lose if they broke consumer trust by on-selling that data. So yeah, I trust my ISP more with my privacy than the random VPN company.

But my VPN comes with a password manager!

Password managers are great. I 100% recommend you use a password manager. If there's one thing you could do right now to improve your security (other than updating your software, speaking of, have you updated yet?), it's getting and using a password manager.

Password managers also come for free.

I'm currently using LastPass free, but am planning to switch after they did a bad capitalism and only let their free accounts access either laptop or mobile but not both now. I personally am planning to move to Bitwarden on friends' recommendation since it's not only free but open source and available across devices. I also have friends who use passbolt and enjoy it, which is also free and open source, but it's also a bit DIY to set up. Great if you like tinkering though! And there are probably many other options out there if you do a bit of googling.

So, yeah, please use a password manager, but don't pay for it unless you actually have use for the extra features.

No I really need to hide my internet activity from everybody for reasons

In this case, you're probably looking for TOR. TOR is basically untraceable. It's also a terrible user experience for the most part because of this, so I'd only recommend it if you need it, such as if you're trying to escape the Great Firewall. But please don't use it for Bad Crimes. I am not to be held liable for any crime committed using information learned from this post.

Further reading viewing

If you want to know more about why you don't need a VPN, see Tom Scott's amazing video on the subject. It's honestly a great intro for beginners.

I like too much detail

Ahhh, so you're the type of person who doesn't get turned off by long explanations I see. Well, here's a little more info on the stuff I oversimplified in the main post about encryption. Uhh, words get bigger and more jargony in this section.

So first oversimplification: the assumption that all web traffic is either HTTP or HTTPS. This isn't exactly true. There are many other application layer internet standards out there, such as ssh, ftp, websockets, and all the proprietary standards certain companies use for stuff such as streaming and video conferencing. Some of these are secure, using TLS or some other security algorithm under the hood, and some of them aren't.

But most of the web requests you care about are HTTP/HTTPS calls. As for the rest, if they come from a company of a decent size that hasn't been hacked off the face of the planet already, they're probably also secure. In other words, you don't need to worry about it.

Next, we've already said that encryption works as a lock and a key, where the lock is a maths formula and the key is a number. But how do we get that key to lock and unlock the data?

Well, to answer that, we first need to talk about the two different types of encryption: symmetric and asymmetric. Symmetric encryption such as AES uses the same key to both encrypt and decrypt data, whereas asymmetric encryption such as RSA uses a different key to encode and decode.

For the sake of my writing, we're going to call the person encrypting Alice, the person decrypting Bob, and the eavesdropper trying to break our communications Eve from now on. These are standard names in crypto FYI. Also, crypto is short for cryptography not cryptocurrencies. Get your Bitcoin and Etherium outta here!

Sorry if things start getting incoherent. I'm tired. It's after 1am now.

So first, how do we get the key from symmetric crypto? This is probably the easier place to start. Well, you need a number, any number of sufficient size, that both Alice and Bob know. There are many ways you could share this number. They could decide it when they meet in person. They could send it to each other using carrier pigeons. Or they could radio it via morse code. But those aren't convenient, and somebody could intercept the number and use it to read all their messages.

So what we use instead is a super clever algorithm called Diffie-Hellman, which uses maths and, in particular, the fact it's really hard to factor large numbers (probably NP Hard to be specific, but there's no actual proof of that). The Wikipedia page for this is surprisingly easy to read, so I'll just direct you there to read all about it because I've been writing for too long. This algorithm allows Alice and Bob to agree on a secret number, despite Eve being able to read everything they send each other.

Now Alice and Bob have this secret number key, they can talk in private. Alice puts her message and the key into the encryption algorithm and out pops what looks like a load of garbage. She can then send this garbage to Bob without worrying about Eve being able to read it. Bob can then put the garbage and the key into the decryption algorithm to undo the scrambling and get the original message out telling him where the good donuts are. Voila, they're done!

But how does Alice know that she's sending her message to Bob and not Eve? Eve could pretend to be Bob so that Alice does the Diffie-Hellman dance with her instead and sends her the secret location of the good donuts instead.

This is where asymmetric crypto comes in! This is the one with private and public keys, and the one that uses prime numbers.

I'm not 100% across the maths on this one TBH, but it has something to do with group theory. Anyway, just like Diffie-Hellman, it relies on the fact that prime factorisation is hard, and so it does some magic with semi-primes, ie numbers with only 2 prime factors other than 1. Google it if you want to know more. I kinda zoned out of this bit in my security courses. Maths hard

But the effect of that maths is easier to explain: things that are encoded with one of the keys can only be decoded with the other key. This means that one of those keys can be well-known to the public and the other is known only to the person it belongs to.

If Alice wants to send a message to Bob and just Bob, no Eve allowed, she can first look up Bob's public key and encrypt a beginning message with that. Once Bob receives the message, he can decrypt it with his private key and read the contents. Eve can't read the contents though because, even though she has Bob's public key, she doesn't know his private key.

This public key information is what the lock in your browser is all about BTW. It's saying that the website is legit based on the public key they provide.

So why do we need symmetric crypto when we have asymmetric crypto? Seems a lot less hassle to exchange keys with asymmetric crypto.

Well, it's because asymmetric crypto is slooooow. So, in TLS, the security algorithm that puts the "S" in "HTTPS", asymmetric RSA is used to establish the initial connection and figure out what symmetric key to use, and then the rest of the session uses AES symmetric encryption using the agreed secret key.

And there you have it! Crypto in slightly-less-short-but-still-high-enough-level-that-I-hope-you-understand.

Just realised how long this section is. Well, I did call it "too much detail" for a reason.

Now, next question is what exactly is and isn't encrypted using HTTPS.

Well, as I said earlier, it's basically just the source IP:port and the destination IP:port. In fact, this information is actually communicated on the logical layer below the application layer HTTPS is on, known as the transport layer. Again, as I said before, you can't really encrypt this unless you don't want your data to reach the place you want at all.

Also, DNS is unencrypted. A DNS request is a request that turns a domain name, such as tumblr.com, into an IP address, by asking a special server called a Domain Name Server where to find the website you're looking for. A DNS request is made before an HTTP(S) request. Anyone who can read your internet traffic can therefore tell you wanted to go to Tumblr.

But importantly, this only shows the domain name, not the full URL. The rest of the URL, the part after the third slash (the first two slashes being part of http://), is stuff that's interpreted by the server itself and so isn't needed during transport. Therefore, it encrypted and completely unreadable, just like all the content on your page.

I was going to show a Wireshark scan of a web request using HTTP and HTTPS to show you the difference, but this has taken long enough to write as it is, so sorry!

I could probably write more, but it's 1:30am and I'm sleepy. I hope you found some of this interesting and think twice before purchasing a VPN subscription. Again, there are legit good uses for a VPN, but they're not the ones primarily being advertised in VPN ads. It's the fact that VPN ads rely so heavily on false advertising that really grinds my gears and made me want to do this rant. It's especially bad when it comes from somebody I'd think of as technologically competent (naming no names here, but if you've worked in tech and still promote VPNs as a way to keep data safe... no). Feel free to ask questions if you want and hopefully I'll get around to answering any that I feel I know enough to answer.

Nighty night Tumblr. Please update your software. And use a (free) password manager. And enable two factor authentication on all your accounts. But mostly just update your software.

#technology #vpn #things you don't need #things that piss me off #res rambles #res writes

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

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Rumors

Corpse Husband x Bimbo!Reader (Female)

Warnings: Mentions of Slut Shaming, Swearing

Genre: Fluff, Tiniest bit of Angst, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: When some rumors start floating around, every content creator does their best to either ignore them or defuse the situation. However, sometimes, the fans attempt to do the defusing themselves which only leads to a worse disaster. That’s the case for Corpse whose fans were quick to jump to his protection of some ‘false’ rumors.

Requested by Anon. Hi dear! Thank you so much for your request, it was a joy to write. I’m sorry for how long it has taken me to complete and post the fic but here it finally is and I hope you enjoy reading it at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it! Love, Vy ❤

Corpse cracks his knuckles, then his shoulders, then his collarbone, then the his neck. He clenches his jaw as he breathes steadily and rhythmically, trying to control an overwhelming wave of anger that he has never felt before. This is a situation he’s never had to deal with nor did he ever think he’d have to deal with and address on a fucking livestream on top of all, but here he is now, doing his best to count to ten and not go on a Twitter responding spree, calling people out on their bullshit. He wanted to do so, he still wants to, but he was stopped in his intentions and brought to a calm mindset where he was swayed into dealing with this the civil way and not by roasting the fuck out of any and every foul-mouthed person he’s seen on his Twitter timeline.

He can’t really guarantee and civility during the stream either, he’s aware his tolerance is as thin as a stretched out, old rubber band and is a slight tug away from snapping and allowing him to unleash hell on these people because of who he’s been seeing red these past few days.

Let’s not risk a misunderstanding here - Corpse absolutely loves and adores his fans, but seeing this behavior from them is quite upsetting and disappointing. When he uses the terms like ‘assholes’, ‘jerks’ and ‘rude motherfuckers’ he isn’t referring to them. He knows they are good people, but are using the completely wrong tactic of defending him, not to mention he doesn’t even need defending. Even if he did, he’s more than capable of doing it on his own and not getting other people involved.

“Hello everyone, hope you’re doing well.“ He finally settles on saying, officially kicking off the stream. If there’s any indicator of the serious nature of this stream, it’s probably the lack of lo-fi and the lack of even attempted playfulness and cheeriness in his voice. That’s how you know shit isn’t to be messed around about. “I just realized I didn’t specify what I’ll be doing in the Tweet, but I’ll tell you now, so those who aren’t interested in the subject or want to steer clear of the drama can leave. However, I wouldn’t advise clicking off considering this will be an overall, how do I say this, rant, of sorts? It’s meant to knock some sense in the people who have been spreading hate for a specific person on all social media platforms she’s active on.“

The majority of the viewers are already familiar with the subject, some even guilty of spreading the hate Corpse mentioned, but there are a few that are completely clueless - the ones actually not interested in online drama, not just saying they ‘hate drama’. With those people in mind, Corpse takes to addressing the issue from its very beginning.

“So, for a month now, me and this streamer, who’s also a TikTok star, by the name of Y/N have been interacting a lot on social media. She’s an incredibly sweet girl that a lot of people have prejudice towards. She’s very misjudged and misunderstood because people see he solely as her content, if that makes sense. They only know she’s that streamer who wears revealing clothes on her streams and posts risqué pictures on her Instagram. Like, no.“ Corpse cannot even fully believe he has to address this and that slut-shaming people is still a thing in the twenty-first century. He closes his eyes for a moment, fist tightening and his knuckles turning white, “I don’t understand how so many people can be so shallow and just plain jerks towards her in general, but then again - this is especially for my fans, the members of my fandom - I don’t understand the need you guys feel to put Y/N down to defend me from some ridiculous rumors as if it’s the first time I’ve had to deal with people talking shit for attention or to get someone canceled.“ He sighs, reminding himself to slow his roll as to not confuse any viewers who still don’t know the full story, “Anyway, back to the timeline of events. So, considering we’ve never interacted before, all the replying to comments, retweeting, liking posts and whatever sparked some dating rumors. Isn’t that just fucking hilarious - you see two people interacting on social media and the first thing that comes to mind is that they’re in a romantic relationship. Where did the friendship go? Does no one value or consider friendships to be a valid type of human relation anymore?“ He runs a hand through his hair, making another pause to clear his mind and prevent his frustration from overflowing. He promised he wouldn’t lose his cool and would remain calm and collected, but the more he talks about it the tighter he clenches his fist and the faster his heartrate is. His neck and ears are red from the tension he feels all over, almost like he’s physically restraining a raging wild animal and not just his own thoughts and emotions.

There’s layers to his anger, the lower ones - aka the ones he’s yet to get to - will be a nightmarish test of his self-control, he already knows it. Judging by how much of a toll this rant has already taken on him, his patience and control growing thinner and thinner, he’s not sure how he’ll power through the last layers without his voice raising awfully high in volume and his fists searching for some object to punch. To an ignorant eye, his reaction would seem exaggerated and overboard, but little does that ignorant eye know...

“When some of my fans saw those rumors, they reacted very badly. It was quite disappointing to see. Guys, I appreciate you standing up for me even though you shouldn’t do that - I can defend myself, not that this was a matter I needed defending from to begin with. But just the way some of you went about it was horrifically wrong and quite upsetting, to me but especially to Y/N herself.“ He can feel it, the aggravation growing, bubbling up in his chest, “What I saw disgusted me, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. The things some of you were saying...I couldn’t believe you are in fact the same people who are my fans, my lovely fans who I’ve always thought so highly of. Never did I think you could be able of slut-shaming so vulgarly and grossly, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.“

He has every right to be upset - the things being said about Y/N were truly awful and a lot of things being said were meant to defend Corpse and defuse the rumors, doing so while stomping all over Y/N and her content. Rightfully so, many of her fans were outraged and quick to jump to her defense but were unfortunately outnumbered, leading Corpse to believe not many of her fans are actually real or as dedicated as his which only fueled his fury further.

Anyway, let’s take a look at Y/N’s point of view. Being a content creator for as long as she has, refusing to change her style no matter how many people disagreed and insulted her about it, she’s grown quite used to people spitting insults at her on every social media possible. It’s sad how throughout the majority of her content creating career she’s only had haters, creeps and fake fans watching her videos and streams. Rare are those in her fandom who’d actually stick up for her and defend her in ‘scandals’ such as this one. However, no amount of experience with dealing with hate could have prepared her for this outpour of some of the meanest shit she’s ever heard and been called in her life.

Y/N likes the content she makes, she’s comfortable in her skin and loves her body. She loves showing it off too and nor she nor anyone who wants that deserves to be shamed for who they are and what they do, especially when they aren’t hurting anyone and their content is still appropriate. People have always bashed her for all elements of who she is: her appearance, her clothing style, her streams, her gaming skills, her voice on occasion. She can count the instances when she’s received positive feedback on the fingers of her hands which would depress anyone else but not her. She’s always created content for her own amusement and entertainment so people’s opinions never really bothered her. Until now, until this very drama that has hit a specific nerve, an insecurity of hers she’s never talked about. The comments such as:

(Vy Speaking: Comments containing slut-shaming ahead, go to ### if you want to skip)

“Corpse would never date a slut like her“

“Corpse dating this thot? Please internet stop being ridiculous“

“Corpse ain’t a pimp, y’all need to chill“

“Even if they datin they gon break up soon - whore stays a whore“

###

bothered her far more than she’d like to admit. She has no one to open up about it either, she knows what she’ll get in response if she does - she’ll be told it’s her fault. Her fault because of the way she dresses, the way she talks and acts, because she chose this career to begin with. All her fault. The only person she can turn to she refuses to because she doesn’t want to be a bother - not after so many people confirmed her worries that she’s not good enough for him already anyway, the least she can do is avoid bothering him the best she can.

And that is exactly why this has upset Corpse so much.

“Here’s a little message specifically meant for those who claimed I’d never date someone like Y/N or specifically Y/N. You better listen carefully: Don’t you ever, and I mean EVER slut-shame my girlfriend or any other person ever. I cannot believe I have to explicitly remind you that your behavior isn’t ok. You should fucking know that your behavior isn’t right and that you’re a massive piece of shit for saying those awful things about others you judge solely on appearance and clothing. Does it surprise you that I am, in fact, dating Y/N? If you say yes for the reason you think she’s not good enough for me or that I deserve better, please get the fuck out of my fandom. No one disrespects my girl and gets away with it. That’s final!“

Though still under the influence of a flurry of negative emotions, overhearing Corpse literally telling people to exclude themselves from his fandom for being mean to her, Y/N’s taking a step towards emotional recovery knowing her boyfriend will always have her back. He’ll always be there to prove people wrong, defend her and stand by her. He’ll be there to catch her when the hate knocks her off her feet.

But most importantly: he’ll never ask her to change. Not her style, not her clothes, not her personality, nothing. He fell for her the way she is and for who she is, and he will never allow anyone to try to change her either. For someone who’s never had much support all her life, a single speck of support overpowers all the hate within the blink of an eye. Corpse will always be her knight in shining armor, the knight who defeated all the hateful demons by just entering her life. And though she’s still struggling with the ‘Am I good enough for someone so wonderful?’ and ‘He deserves better, doesn’t he?’ questions, with his hand holding hers, she’ll never let those doubts and insecurities overpower her.

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sulevinen · 2 years

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I thought i sent an ask but apparently i didn't so: please talk about Bones i love her so much pleaseeee does she have a design??? Uahdjajs does she?????? Oh god please rant about her ughahshshshsj

WALDBSKXJSN YES I WILL RANT ABOUT HER THANK YOU FOR ASKING i love her too so very much

she has a design i did back in may but my phone hates me and deleted it on it’s own, BUT bones has pink hair, buzzcut on both sides, four piercings and six earrings and she has a scar above her left eyelid. she has her jaw tattooed with the exact replica of the bones underneath.

i don’t know where to start but YEAH bones is the borderline genius hacker of the squad. she takes care of ships, communication, cyber sabotage and -security. all that is under the cut because i wrote so much stuff lakdlskd

she makes sure all the squad’s ships and transports are in perfect condition: no scratches, no loose bolts, no squeaky doors or jammed buttons.

she adds some upgrades too, usually with illegal non-GAR-approved items, to enhance the speed and firepower of the ships (something i’ve always wanted to do, it irks me how weak some of the ships can be).

she has modified general Merell’s ship to stand out of the squadron as a much faster and stronger ship.

she also paints the ships, and every ship she has put love into has her symbol, a pink jawbone.

without her, the communication within the squad and between the squad and the rest of the battallion would not work.

she’s very proud of that fact, to a point that she might get petty and not fix the comms if someone has agitated her.

she has fun by modifiying the voices, like making ceres sound like a ghoul or ardor sound like a little girl. and not even when it’s appropriate, sometimes she might do it during battle.

whereas the others sabotage the seppies with explosives and discreet plans to wipe out the droids from outposts, bones participates through technology.

she messes with their communication to change their plans and make it all fall into chaos, sometimes with just a simple string of code that disables their internet (the star wars equivalent of it).

she intercepts separatist transmissions which gives the squad an important advantage.

if she finds droids still intact, she’ll reprogram them to infiltrate the base (like r2 did at citadel, that’s where she got the idea)

when it comes to cyber security, that’s what bones is most serious about. everything else is just fun for her, a way to kill time or to get the job done, but she never jokes about security. she can get very obsessive about it.

she meddles with their own internet to secure it and installs vpn-type of programs to every datapad in the battallion to make sure nobody knows about any of their intel or battleplans.

she changes passwords weekly (everyone’s annoyed at her for it, it’s always something dumb like ”rife’s smelly toes” or her favorite song lyrics).

she checks obsessively for any viruses and installs multiple firewalls to every ship’s communication system.

she works closely with every comm technician to make sure they’re up to speed of the latest new security measures (they are and they hate her for constantly reminding them).

after battles she usually sneaks out back to the battlefield to clear it from the droid junk to get free spare parts. she recruits wretch or thrice, sometimes foul to help her carry the stuff back to the ships without anyone noticing. that’s how she saves both credits and the nature (not that she cares about the last part, she’s not a nature person)

some random facts:

- she likes doing pranks and eating fast food.

- she’s not into drama, and she’ll usually stay out of arguments, judging from the corner while eating popcorn. she’ll get the gossip she needs from thrice, but does not like to get personally involved because she can’t argue without crying

- she got her name for collecting animal bones as a cadet, and because i was listening to bones by imagine dragons while creating her lmao

- she’s obsessed with the movie jaws, but she hates the ending because she loves sharks

- she moved to alderaan after the war and was there when it blew up.

#this is A LOT but you wanted a rant so 🫶#thanks for the ask!!!!#star wars #sulevocs #oc bones #inbox

12 notes · View notes

watchmegetobsessed · 4 years

Text

Update - Harry Styles

i’ve been deep inmy harry feels and this thought just wouldn’t leave me alone so i had to write it. im thinking about starting a taglist for harry, i think i’ll write more about him in the future. let me know if you’d be interested in the taglist!

word count: ~5.9k

masterlist

Sequel: The best present

Harry is not that into YouTube videos, has never really been, which is kind of ironic seeing the number of videos on the internet that is about him. The man himself who makes everyone talk online feels weird seeing someone talking on his screen, looking into his soul as if they were right there with him. But today he felt the sudden urge to be like his peers and get lost in random rambling videos from strangers, who felt the need to put themselves out there.

He has made a mean cup of tea for himself, made himself comfortable on his couch with his laptop balancing on his thighs and now is opening up his browser to unwind in an unusual way. As YouTube opens in front of his tired eyes, he stops when he tries to type in the keywords he is searching for. What is he looking for really? He thinks to himself trying to remember what he heard from his friends when they talked about funny or interesting videos. One thing is for sure, he is trying to avoid watching videos of himself in any content. He has had enough of him for the day, it’s time to focus on someone else, even if he doesn’t know the person.

He scrolls through several pages of many different keywords until he settles for a video where a girl talks about how her latest moving day went. Starting off Harry feels weird listening to her talk about such personal things as where her bed went in her room, how she packed all her stuff to fit them in the boxes, but soon enough this feeling settles and he starts to realize it’s kind of relaxing.

It doesn’t take too long for him to fall down a rabbit hole and by the time his tea empties out from his cup he is intensely watching a guy rant about his boss at Subway while doing a mukbang. The latter is a new discovery for Harry, he has never heard of it before, but he can see why some people find it satisfying.

The video ends, Harry checks the time and sees that it’s already after midnight and he hasn’t even realized how fast time flew by.

“Alright, just one more,” he mumbles to himself scrolling down the column of the recommended videos until his eyes stop at one particular upload at the very bottom.

July update for my Sammy, ready the title and an eye-catchingly beautiful girl is smiling from the thumbnail. He finds her breathtaking, the lack of makeup, the worn out hoodie she is wearing and the many various plants in the background makes it appear she is sitting in the middle of the forest.

Harry finds himself clicking on the video before he could even decide consciously to watch it. The screen loads and the girl appears in front of him, this time in a much larger size.

“Hi Sammy, welcome back to our channel,” she starts with an angelic little laugh as she pulls her shoulders up to her ears as if the camera is making her shy. She has no reason to be shy, Harry thinks to himself. His second thought is about Sammy, he is one lucky guy to know this angel and have her think about him. “It’s Y/N here, your one and only sister,” she adds.

Sister. The word brings Harry relief and he is surprised to feel this way, but he has no time to think anything of it because she starts talking again.

“Here is my July update, I’m sorry I’m a little late, but we got back from Oregon yesterday. Aunt Ella is sending you kisses and hugs, she missed you at the barbeque, or maybe it was just your helping hand at the grill,” she chuckles to herself, probably recalling the memory.

Harry has no idea who Aunt Ella is or where she lives in Oregon, but the way she talks about it makes him feel like he is part of the family a little.

Y/N carries on and starts talking about everything that has happened in July. Painting the shed at her parents’ home, buying a new armchair, one her cat absolutely adores and refuses to sleep anywhere else now, she went to the hairdresser to get a trim, but not too much. She tells about her plans for August, how she is thinking about going to the farmers’ market more often, and she has been playing with the idea of adopting another cat.

“I think Henry has been feeling a little lonely lately. He could use a buddy,” she tells the camera, her eyes moving to the side from where a weak but moody meow can be heard as an answer. “Yeah, I think he agrees,” she chuckles and Harry finds himself smiling at the screen.

At the end of the video she asks a few questions from Sammy, how he has been doing, if his wrist feels any better, even asks about a friend called Matthew. Harry wonders if she has ever gotten the answers to her questions and where Sammy saw this video. What is he doing that made her want to do an update on YouTube?

When the video ends Harry clicks on her profile faster than he would willingly admit to anyone and it’s like he opened the gate to paradise. Tens and maybe hundreds of videos are queuing on her page, monthly updates, birthday wishes, short story times about family gatherings, news and happenings in her life.

Harry gets lost in her tales. He watches video after video, noticing the smallest details about her, almost mentally taking notes about her updates, finding anything and everything she talks about so interesting as if he knew those people and places she mentions. He comes to realization that Sammy is her older brother who is serving somewhere in the military. Y/N is making the videos to update him about her life even if she knows most of them doesn’t get to him until weeks later, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. He also learns that Sammy sends them back lengthy emails once a month and always ends them with a joke they made up with his mates at the army. Y/N loves them even when they're not even funny, she never fails to mention that she smiled reading them.

Hours pass by and the rising Sun peeks inside the window pulling Harry back to his own reality, shocked that he just spent the whole night watching her videos and didn’t even realize how deep he has gotten in her life. Lucky for him he has nothing planned until the afternoon, so shutting his laptop he sets it aside and heads straight to bed, but lying between his silky sheets he catches himself staring out the window, wondering what Y/N might be doing right now. From what he collected she lives somewhere in Spokane and has family in Seattle and Portland, which puts her quite a few time zones behind him. He finds the thought of them going to bed at the same time despite the distance a little funny. He lies in bed for quite some time before he finally drifts off to sleep with a particular girl on his mind, who doesn’t even know he is thinking about her.

“Do you think you can fall for someone you have never met?”

Harry’s question catches Mitch a little off-guard, but he is kind of used to his random bits of thoughts. Pouring some sugar into his coffee he follows the wondering singer to a free table in the corner.

“Isn’t it what all your fans feel?” he answers with a question, earning a surprised look from Harry. He hasn’t thought about this side, now the situation is kind of ironic, he supposes.

“Y’re right,” he nods stirring his coffee around in the small cup.

“Want to let me in on your thoughts?”

Harry feels a little shy to admit how he has watched all of her videos in the past few days, 207 to be exact and now he feels an oddly deep connection to this girl he has never even seen outside of a screen. Last night he dug up her Instagam profile, and even though she is not posting as frequently as she does on her channel, it was a refreshing change to see her in different settings. Chilling at a lake, having drinks with her friends, playing with her parents’ puppy, it amazed him that she has a whole life outside that small portion she lets him see in her videos.

Hesitantly, but he tells his friend about his latest hobby, if it’s not too weird to call it that, while his friend patiently listens and nods along his words while sipping on his morning coffee.

“D’you think I’m crazy?” Harry sighs leaning back in his seat, looking at his friend and colleague for validation that he hasn’t lost his mind entirely.

“Definitely not,” he chuckles shaking his head. “It’s like falling for that girl in school you know so much about but never really met.”

“Only that I’m stalkin’ this poor girl.”

“This is not stalking. We both know it’s far from that.” Harry nods with slight relief that his situation doesn’t seem as bad as he has been feeling lately. “Have you gotten in touch with her?”

“And what am I supposed to do? Comment on her video that I think her cat’s a cutie and I watched all her videos in three days ‘cuz I think she’s beautiful and I find her voice soothing?”

Mitch lets out a soft chuckle at the oddly specific answer he just gave and finds it amusing how interested his friend has grown about someone in such a short time.

“Maybe phrase it a little different.”

“So you do think I should reach out?”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Use your personal YouTube, leave her a nice comment. Maybe she’ll reply.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” he chuckles. “Just go with it and you’ll see. You are obviously interested in her, it’s better than just sit and watch her videos.”

Harry agrees. It wouldn’t hurt to try to reach out to her, possibly in a not too creepy way. Maybe just a sweet comment on one of her videos and if she replies… Well, he doesn’t know what comes after, but he’ll figure it out.

Y/N updates regularly. Usually once a week and mostly it’s Sunday when a new video gets uploaded. This next Sunday Harry finds himself checking her page occasionally through the day to see if there’s a new update, but it seems like she is missing today. Right until he is driving home and gets a notification from the app.

Y/N has just uploaded a new video! It reads and Harry’s heart beats a tad bit faster. He thinks about pulling over to see it right away, but he tells himself that would be a bit too much, so he is forced to wait until he is in the comfort of his home.

Finally sitting on his couch he opens up his laptop and clicks on the video that has the title: September update.

Y/N sits in her usual spot, Henry in her arms as she is gently stroking his head with a warm smile on her face.

“Hi Sammy! Welcome back to our channel,” she greets him with her usual words and Harry loves how she calls the channel theirs. “This is my September update, even though not much has happened,” she breathes out, eyes wandering to the window besides her and Harry wonders what she sees from her window every day. Does she live in the city? Is it an apartment or a house with a backyard? Are there any trees or does her room have a terrible view, maybe just another house next to hers?

She starts her talk about the month, which she spent mostly with working, a little shopping and meeting her friends. She tells him about her planned trip to the local shelter to see possible new kittens to add to her household and Harry feels himself growing excited about it. He even thinks about what kind of cat he can see get along well with Henry even though he has never even met him.

“Anyway, mom and dad miss you, I miss you too. I loved your joke about ducks in your latest email,” she chuckles sweetly, bringing a smile to Harry’s face as well. “Mom is excited to see you at Christmas, our cousins will come to Portland as well. Maya can’t wait to play Jenga with you, she said she’s been practicing.”

The video soon ends as Y/N tells Sammy how much she loves him and eventually turns the camera off.

He straight away moves the cursor to the beginning of the video and as she starts talking again he scrolls down to the comment section that’s entirely empty. There are only two views on her video, usually a hundred is the max, but she doesn’t seem to care about the views, it’s more about the message.

He clicks to type a comment, but his hands stop above the keyboard as he tries to think of what to write. Mitch was right about taking a chance at reaching out, but what is he supposed to write exactly? Everything that comes to his mind sounds so creepy and scary, and he knows it’s weird that he formed such a deep connection to an unknown girl online. At last he starts typing.

“Hi Y/N! I’ve stumbled across your videos the other day. Love how you keep your brother updated, it’s such a nice gesture. I hope life treats you and Sammy well, you truly deserve it. Good luck with finding a buddy for Henry! Love, an admirer of yours, H.”

He reads it back several times, deleting then retyping it again until he decides to just go with it. A rush of adrenaline washes over his body when he sends the comment and it’s officially out there. Secretly he wishes she would reply right away, but moments pass by, then moments turn into minutes and nothing happens. His comment stands there alone and he has to realize that maybe she will never even reply or even see it.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself as he shuts the laptop down and goes on to do his things, but he finds his thoughts wander over to her from time to time.

He has a busy day ahead of him the next day, quite a few meetings and a fitting. He checks back for a reply in the morning, but it slips his mind the moment he leaves from home and his phone rings right away. Throughout the day he basically barely has time to check his emails, his other notifications are just sitting patiently on the bar, waiting for him to acknowledge them. It’s way past five in the afternoon when he finally have some time for himself after his fitting. He is sitting in his car, people walk past him without even realizing who is sitting behind the tinted windows. Scrolling down he gets rid of everything that doesn’t seem urgent until his eyes stop at one particular notification.

“Y/N replied to your comment,” he reads it out loud, just to make it real, as if he is seeing it wrong and saying it with his own mouth brings it to life. He quickly taps on it and the familiar video opens up and while Y/N starts talking again the screen jumps down to the comments where, in fact, there is a reply from her.

“Dear H! Thank you for your heartfelt comment! I always forget it’s not just my family who sees these videos, but I’m happy you found them interesting enough to watch a few of them.”

“A few?” Harry huffs to himself feeling a little ridiculous he has watched all of them.

“I hope I didn’t bore you too much. Thank you for the well wishes for me, my brother and Henry too. He is sending his love to you. Y/N xx”

The comment was posted three hours ago. The thought that she has acknowledged his existence with not only reading but also replying to his comment brings him extreme joy. He reads her words over and over again, looking for any clue that would give away that she found his comment weird, but it seems like she was more surprised and happy that someone else saw her video besides her brother. Harry starts to type his reply without hesitation.

“Bore me? You saved me from watching another “what’s in my bag” video the other day. It was a pleasant change. I love your plants, by the way. Your room always gives off the most relaxed vibes. It reminded me I should have more of them in my home. H”

Harry smiles to himself posting his comment, the fear of appearing like a stalker long gone from him, the interaction is making his inside blossom from joy. For his biggest surprise a reply appears just a few minutes away and Harry reads Y/N’s new lines with deep hunger.

“Those videos suck the life out of me every time! I might be having a problem with buying too many plants, but I can’t help myself. They truly bring peace to me just by looking at them. I’m glad you are planning on buying some more, you won’t regret it!”

Harry is dying to reply, but he doesn’t want to look too eager and needy, so he opts for just liking her comment to let her know he read it and agrees. He locks his phone and puts it aside with the widest smile on his face as he starts his car and leaves his parking spot.

Two weeks pass by. In those two weeks Y/N uploads two more videos, one about her time with her grandparents, for a change it was filmed at their home and they even said hello in it. Harry feels wholesome seeing her with her granny and grandpa, it’s clear she cares a lot about them. The other video is just a short one where she has met some of Sammy’s old high school friends and she had a check in from them, sending a sweet message to him through the video. Harry doesn’t doubt how much these little things mean to Sammy, even if he doesn’t get to see them right away. Seeing Y/N alone boosts his mood every time she uploads a new video, he can only imagine how they make Sammy feel.

He leaves comments on her videos without a second thought and she replies to all of them, a lot of the time almost immediately. These are the highlights of his days without exception. Knowing that she has anything to do with him just fascinates him and he is starting to realize what his fans feel towards him on a different level. Whenever he sees the notification that she has replied to what he wrote or that she uploaded a new video he flies right to her page to check it, no matter what he is doing. Some of their comment threads turn out pretty lengthy, almost like a chat conversation and it has Harry wonder how they could maybe move it to somewhere else from the comment section.

He wants to ask for her number, but figures it wouldn’t be the best idea. Regardless of how much he enjoys their short little conversations, the situation is still weird and complicated and he doesn’t want to forget that.

But he is pleasantly surprised when she brings it up herself, to move the conversation to somewhere else.

“Would love to discuss that more with you. Up for exchanging IG names?” her question reads and he blinks a few before he fully comprehends that she wants to talk to him more in private. However there’s no way he can send her his real Instagram profile and making a fake one would be way too suspicious. Opening up the private messages he sends her a short, but informative message.

“I don’t use Instagram, but feel free to text me,” and then his phone number.

He sits at the dinner table anxiously, waiting for his phone to light up from a new text, and just a few minutes later it finally comes.

“Hi! It’s Y/N,” he reads from the notification and he saves the number right away.

“Hello! Save me as Harry. I haven’t even told you my name yet, how rude of me!” he replies chuckling to himself.

“Will let it slip this time. Harry. What a nice name!”

“Is it what you thought about from the H?”

“It was one of my theories. The other one was Hayes, but Harry fits you better.”

“You haven’t even seen me, how do you know what name fits me?”

“I don’t know. You had a vibe. There are many great Harries in the world, you seemed to fit between them!”

Harry wonders if she is thinking about him without even knowing that… it is him. He wants to ask her, but decides not to. Instead, he is enjoying that he can now reach her immediately and not through a comment section. He never thought this would actually happen.

The texts never stop. They have so much to talk about! Their entire life to share, millions of thoughts and so much to discuss! Harry is not proud of the time he has spent with his eyes glued to his phone, but he wouldn’t miss a chance to talk to her for anything. Their friends are not blind to the change in him, but Mitch is the only one with a guess about why he has gotten so addicted to his phone.

“Is it the girl from the videos?” he asks Harry one time when they are at the studio, having lunch break. Different food boxes are scattered around them, on the table and the couch. Harry’s phone just light up from a text and he immediately dropped his lunch to type a response.

He glances up at his friend with a shy smile nodding his head. He hasn’t talked about his newly funded friendship with Y/N yet, it feels like as if he tells it to anyone it might evaporate into just a dream.

“So you reached out, huh?”

“I did,” he nods returning to his food once his message is sent. “She’s great.”

“Does she know who she is talking to?” Harry’s lack of answer tells enough about the truth to Mitch. “You can’t hide forever, especially if you are planning on meeting her.”

“I know,” he answers shortly. “But I just don’t know how I could even bring it up to her without sounding like a mad man.”

“She’ll need proof.”

“M’not ready to show m’self to her. What if it changes everything?”

“Then it wasn’t worth it,” he simply tells him.

Deep down Harry knows it’s the truth, but he is not ready to be robbed from the joy she is bringing him. He has never felt such a deep connection to anyone before and they haven’t even met. It’s just a version of her he is seeing on the screen, not her real self. But it feels real to him and he wants to keep this reality to himself for just a little longer.

“I wish I could hear your voice, Harry. You are one big mystery to me, you know that?”

He forgets to breathe for a moment as he reads her message, lying in bed one evening, getting ready to sleep, but he wanted to check in with her before ending the day.

“You know so much about me already,” he types back.

“Not enough, I feel like. Sometimes I’m afraid Nev and Max are about to show up at my door and tell me that I’ve been catfished.”

He chuckles at her words, though he completely understands her fear.

“What do you want from me then?”

“Send me a voice message so I know you are real. That would put my suspicion to sleep. For a while…”

Harry hesitates for a long time until he decides just one voice message couldn’t hurt. Just a short one where his voice is not that recognizable so his cover won’t be over immediately.

“Good night, Y/N,” he tells into his phone and then send the recording to her.

He watches the status change from delivered to read and a couple of minutes go by before she finally responds.

“Thank you. Now I know that you are real. I hope I’ll hear your voice in real life one day.”

“I hope that too.”

His time spent undercover is coming to an end and he knows it’ll happen soon. It’s been weeks since they started chatting, almost an entire month and she’s been hinting her will to see his face and though he has been putting it off, he knows it has to happen.

Fate is playing under his hands, because he is traveling to Seattle for a few days, exactly when Y/N is traveling there to visit her parents.

“I hope you know you can’t leave without meeting finally,” she wrote when she found out they are going to be in the same city.

“It never even crossed my mind!” he wrote back chuckling to himself, however it brought him extreme anxiety that he is now going to be forced to come clean about who he really is.

He spends his whole flight to Seattle making up possible outcomes for their first official meeting. Not all of them end well and it’s just fueling his fear that he might lose her for not telling her the entire truth.

But she is a smart girl, she’ll see your reasoning, he tells himself, however he can’t entirely convince himself that it will be the case.

In hopes of squeezing in more than just one meeting into the weekend they agreed to meet almost first thing after he lands. So after checking into his hotel he heads into the city to finally meet her in real life in a local café she suggested for the occasion. Arriving to the place he is running a little late and she already texted him she’ll be waiting for him inside. Harry is wearing a beanie with shades to try to keep up his cover and it seems to be working, no one has approached him yet.

Stepping inside the cozy looking place his eyes roam around and immediately finds her sitting in the corner, pouring sugar into her coffee, not even paying attention to the door at the moment, but truth is she’s been intensely staring at it in the past ten minutes she has been there.

Harry takes a deep breath and nods to himself before heading in her way, hands shaking nervously as he stops at her table.

She glances up at him with innocent eyes, a smile spreads across her face as she sees that her mysterious Harry has arrived and she doesn’t recognize her until he finally takes his sunglasses off.

Harry watches her face turn from happiness to surprise then utter shock as she realizes who is standing in front of him.

“You are… my Harry?” she asks, confusion laced through her voice and Harry can’t ignore how she called him her Harry. He likes the ring of it.

“M’orry if it’s a little too much f’you, I really didn’t know how to tell ya.”

Keeping his eyes on her he pulls out the other chair at the table and takes a seat across her while she is still staring at him with a shocked and puzzled expression sitting on her face. Then she looks around in suspicion as he wiggles his coat off his arms, before her eyes settle on him once again.

“It’s not an episode of Catfish, right?” she asks making him chuckle.

“It is not, don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being weird, but this was literally the last thing I was expecting,” she admits leaning back in her seat. “I believed things like this only happen in movies.”

“Not just there,” he smiles, slowly relieving that she is still sitting there and hasn’t ran out. It’s going way better than he expected.

She needs a little time to put the whole picture together and befriend the thought that she indeed just developed a friendship with Harry Styles through her videos for her brother. The absurdity is still shocking to her, but the more time passes by with him still sitting there, the more she finds peace with it.

Once the shock and surprise is gone they slowly realize they are seeing each other in real life finally. Harry feels overwhelmed, she is even more breathtaking than in her videos and through texts. He is mesmerized by her whole being and could listen to her talk in person forever, he wouldn’t get bored of her.

Time stops existing as they sit at the little café, talking for hours even though that’s all they’ve been doing through texts, but they just can’t get enough of hearing each other, seeing each other’s reaction and be able to see each other and not stare at a screen while talking.

Unfortunately, time never stopped just for the two of them and soon she realizes she needs to head back home. Harry doesn’t want to let go of her just yet so he offers to give her a ride, thanking himself for getting a rental for himself upon arriving. Y/N accepts the offer so the two of them head back to her parents’ home, soaking up the last minutes of their precious time spent together.

“Thank you for today, I really loved meeting you finally,” she smiles at him once they are parked on the driveway.

“I hope I didn’t shock you too much,” he chuckles scratching his chin.

“Just a little,” she admits before they both get out of the car and walking around it she stops in front of him, after a moment of hesitation she opts for a hug that he returns more than happily.

It feels as if her frame was perfectly sculpted to fit in his embrace and Harry can’t imagine how he could go this long without even seeing her in person. He knows it’s gonna be utter misery to be away from her after they leave the city.

“Will I see you before you take off?” she asks letting go of him. Harry looks down at her, the urge to kiss her growing bigger with each passing moment, but he is not sure if it would be appropriate to give it a try on their first time meeting.

“I’m free tomorrow for a lunch,” he tells her and she nods smiling.

“Then I’m free too,” she chuckles.

There’s an awkward moment where they are not sure what else should be done or said and the more they wait the weirder it’s getting so Harry clears his throat as he takes a step back, sad that he has to leave without feeling her lips on his, but he is not trying to be too greedy.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he smiles walking back to his car. Y/N waves after him and sitting back to behind the wheel he takes a moment to himself to collect himself after everything that has happened today. His hands curl around the wheel and he is about to start the car when someone knocks on the window. Y/N is smiling at him through the glass and he rolls it down curiously.

“I just…” she starts hesitantly, her eyes wander down to his lips and Harry knows what’s about to happen, but it still catches him by surprise.

Y/N leans in through the window and presses her lips to Harry’s, capturing them in a sweet, long awaited first kiss they both have been dreaming of for quite a while. Harry smiles into the kiss, bringing his right hand up to cup her cheeks as they stretch the moment for as long as possible. Whenever one pulls back the other brings them back for just one more kiss that turns into two more, then three… It takes a long time for them to finally let go of each other.

“See you later, H,” she smiles backing out of the car and running up to the front door, smiling wildly as she waves in his way one last time before disappearing in the house.

Lying in bed that evening Harry is scrolling through his Instagram feed when he finally realizes he can now follow her without a worry. He is quick to find her profile again and hit that follow button. He is happy to see she was already following him.

He is just about to put his phone aside and go to bed after such a busy but exciting day when a notification pops up on the screen.

Y/N has just uploaded a new video!

He taps on it quickly and her smiling face greets him from his phone’s screen.

“Hi Sammy! It’s me again. Welcome back to our channel,” she starts with a shy smile. The setting is new this time, he supposes it’s her parents’ home this time. “This is going to be a short video, but I wanted to tell you about something. Or someone.”

Harry’s heart skips a beat when he thinks about where it’s heading. He listens to her voice holding his breath.

“I met someone today. We’ve been talking for a while, but I could finally hug him today. His name is Harry, and he is a wonderful man. I think you two would get along well,” she says with a soft chuckle. “I love spending time with him and I hope he feels the same way. Actually…” Her eyes move up straight to the camera, something she doesn’t do often. She usually stares out the window or plays with Henry while talking. “I think he is watching it right now. Hi Harry!”

“Hello, Beautiful,” he greets her back with a smile as if she could hear him.

“I wanted to tell you how amazing you are making me feel. I hope I didn’t disappoint. I was so nervous to meet you today, I hope I lived up to what you imagined me to be.”

“You were so much better than that,” he answers again.

“Anyway… I hope you feel the same way. You are the first guy I’m talking about in an update, so appreciate it!” she tells him and he chuckles lightly. “I’ll see you soon, H. But until then… Know that I’m thinking about you.”

“M’thinking about you too, Angel.”

“Sammy, I miss you as always. I hope everything is well, can’t wait for your next email. I love you,” she smiles before the video ends.

Harry heads straight to the comments. This time he doesn’t leave a lengthy one, just a short line, but it has everything he wanted to tell her.

“I feel the same way.” The comment reads. Just a few seconds later comes the notification and he smiles sweetly at his phone.

Y/N liked the comment.

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles oneshot #harry styles fluff #harry styles fiction #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry #styles #one direction #harry styles fanfictions

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tossawary · 3 years

Note

Wow! Sounds like a bad situation you have with your computer there! I hope it gets fixed soon! Stay safe! Please no "We die like Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky"! Also, thanks to your Shen Qingqiu MILF/DILF rant I am now thinking of Silver Fox Shen Qingqiu! ...Now I want fanart, what have you done????? XD

Unfortunately, it’s not really something that can be fixed! I’m forcing my computer to render heavy (complicated) video files, which it can do, just... with effort. So, there’s like 10-15 minutes in which my computer becomes very, very slow because it is doing its best. Kind of makes me feel spoiled, honestly, like, “What do you mean I can’t render video in the background AND stream movies on my other screen AND browse the internet while loading many images?!”

Honestly, I don’t even understand some of the things I’m making my computer do. I can only poke the screen like, “Do the magic faster and better.” Usually, I just get up and leave my computer alone for a while.

Haha, yeah, that rant... look... if someone had called Wei Wuxian a MILF as a joke, I wouldn’t have blinked. Because, like: A-Yuan + “I birthed this child myself” + Wangxian’s related kinks = yeah, sure, I get that joke.

But Shen Yuan?! Shen “if I so much as look at my own sexuality, I’ll die” Yuan?! Shen “I can only behave and dress the way I do because I’m pretending to be someone else and the concept of examining my relationship to gender doesn’t even exist in my brain” Yuan?! Outside of very specific AUs and/or kink fic determined to make stuff happen, this man would be a DILF, except he’s not even a parent and ykw, thank goodness he’s not.

(You can argue that “Luo Binghe has a MILF kink” but imo that’s not grounds for generally calling SQQ a MILF. It’s Luo Binghe. Luo Binghe has all the kinks and all the fantasies. This man is down for pretty much anything.)

Anyway, silver foxes! SY complains about being an “old man” and he doesn’t even have greying hair or wrinkles? I know these types of novels and especially the bullshit Airplane was writing has everyone being young and beautiful forever, but there are plenty of opportunities to give SQQ’s body some scars or signs of age, especially given his self-destruction and resurrection. Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge are not cowards. They’d be into it.

#hello-casualbouquetcycle #ask tossawary #tossawary svsss #tossawary mdzs #shen yuan #wei wuxian #mpreg tw #tw mpreg #pregnancy tw #tw pregnancy #silver fox shen qingqiu au

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werevulvi · 3 years

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I hope these show up in the right order. This kinda stuff is exactly what makes me feel lost about my transness. Like I was just trying to be nice and agreed with this person's post. I had no interest in being an asshole or arguing what bio sex, or even what butch, is. I was just declaring myself as a bio female because it felt relevant to the topic and how I relate to it. It amazes me how even the pro self-ID types are against self-ID when someone identifies in a way that doesn't suit their narrative, even when it's a trans person whose identity they deny.

They blocked me and I don't want anyone going after them, I just wanna rant. And not even about this specific post or person, but more so about trying to exist as a gender critical trans person in general. I've been thinking about that for days, weeks, perhaps months or even years already, so it's really not about this specific person. I guess it was just what triggered me to finally start writing.

I guess I feel like both most other trans people and most other gender critical people, view transness as incompatible with gender critical opinions, and like that makes me feel pulled in two opposing directions. But anyone of any ideology can be dysphoric and transition because it helps them cope. I don't think that my opinions, or my choice to hang out with radfems, means that I'm self-hating, or even that I'm going against the needs of my own trans demographic. My own trans demographic is just all too good at confusing wants with needs... generally speaking. I see sex and gender the way I do because it makes sense to me personally, and I don't even argue that it's necessarily the objective truth. I don't think there is such a thing. It's just my truth, my perception of the world.

That I can't make myself see myself as a man for real, despite my dysphoria and transition, doesn't mean that I think it's wrong to transition, or that my body is damaged by it, or that transitioning is useless. Because it's not. I love my transition and everything it has given me. I'm comfortable with my transitioned body. It deserves love, especially my love. And although I still struggle with some insecurities, I feel like I love my body. It's been... incredibly good to me. It's stayed very healthy, and even keeping up a strong immune system despite my smoking, self harm, careless sexual escapades, etc. I may still have a fraught relationship with being female, but as long as I transition, I seem to be managing it fairly well. Except then I have a more fraught relationship with society instead. Can't win, but that's life, innit?

I don't think either my transness or my political opinions are my real problem or ever was. I think it's society's constant fighting about trans people's genders, lives and choices, that makes me constantly cave in on myself. Can't handle the pressure.

It feels like it's only ever getting worse. Ten years ago my biggest concern was people not ever finding me attractive because I was turning myself into some kind of a freak, which luckily I was proven to be wrong about. Five years ago my biggest concern was nonbinary people trying to normalize asking people their pronouns, which made me fear that people would never leave me alone about my gender, unless I forced myself to be hyper-masculine, which I still worry about. Three years ago my biggest concern was having been stripped of my sex-based rights and dehumanized for how I had chosen to treat my dysphoria, which I still worry about as well, and now...

...my biggest concerns are being treated as a third gender, fetishistic predator who should be shoved away into gender neutral spaces, and I fear that one day medical transition will be taken away as an option to treat dysphoria if transness is continued to be rejected as a medical condition. My heart rate is ever increasing. Can I even realistically "just go on with my life" anymore? I feel compelled to do something, but I also feel like there isn't anything I can do. No matter how many people I try to "educate" about dysphoria and why transition is incredibly important, all the while being as humble as I can, I am seriously lacking behind the much faster spread of harmful misinformation.

Thing is, I do not blame gender critical people for spreading some of that misinformation. For example of trans women as fetishistic predators, which people apply to trans men when they still fail to understand that MtF is not the only kinda trans there is, or when we dare to be just a little bit feminine while passing as male. If anything, I blame the true sources of such harmful claims, which slowly increase my anxious heart rate, over years, turning into decades, of living as openly trans. I blame opportunistic men who pretend to be trans women for gaining access to women's spaces, be it prisons, spas, shelters, sports, what have you, when they cannot possibly be dysphoric judging by how happily they swing their dicks around women as if it's no big deal and make no attempt at transitioning, but also who cares if they are dysphoric, no one should behave that way either way. I blame the trans rights activists who say lesbians have to suck dick if it's attached to a trans woman, and those who say that gay men have to be into pussy and date trans men. I blame those who say that trans women are bio female by virtue of identifying as female, and claiming that they can get periods, by virtue of... bowel cramps?! I'd also blame those who try to change female specific language on behalf of shielding trans men from our own dysphoria, in the rare cases we'd end up getting pregnant or manage to drag our asses to the gyno office for a pap smear, which... most of us really don't, regardless of if you call us women or uterus-havers, sincerely, please stop. It makes people think trans women are trying to take over the term "woman" entirely for themselves, which of course they don't.

I could go on, but I won't, as this post is not about these things. It's more so about how estranged I feel from the people who spout these things, knowing that they think they're speaking for me and my supposed needs as a tranny. But I see no point in trying to educate them, as they won't listen any more to me than they would to a radfem, and again, I think this post in my screenshots shows just how unwilling they are to listen to me.

I guess living with my transition on constant display is what's hard, and I guess I just need to vent about that, as it's always judged one way or the other; as either me having made myself into a man, or that I'm a delusional woman who mutilated herself; and it's kinda hard to find a kind and sane middle ground, that perhaps I'm just a victim of circumstances, and trying to make the most of my own life, regardless of what the fuck I am. That social shit, on top of dealing with dysphoria, makes it really difficult to not hate myself, I guess. But I have tried to live stealth and that made it if possible even worse, as it felt like I was lying, keeping a huge secret that grew in me like a spreading virus.

What I want is to just live my life, and for neither my bio sex, nor my transition, to stop me from doing that. I want to work through the worst of my autism, enough to be able to pursue a career in some low-paying labor, blue-collar job; get a car and driver's licence, find a suitable husband to have a child and cats with; I want my own garden, an art studio; I want to build muscle to become strong and even more independent (and perhaps strong enough to carry that husband, but at least to carry myself), and so on. When I picture myself in that potential future, it is with this male-like appearance I transitioned my body into, but it is also as a mother and wife.

And thinking about all of that makes me happy, it makes me smile and feel joy, meaningfulness, hope... While thinking about arguing online with some miserable fuck, who's deadset on arguing semantics and calling me a terf, when all I wanted was to show a little bit of kindness, that "hey, I agree with you, you make a good point here, and I'm not here to fight" only to be spat right back into my face... just makes me feel sad. Whatever happened to diversity of opinion? It's gone, it became labeled as bad, and left people like me with no place to be.

There is no point in arguing with such people, or even trying not to argue. There's no winning in that, there's no reward, no accomplishment. It's better to walk away.

I know I just have to get over this, this inner conflict of going against my transness with my gender critical opinions, and that I'm going against my womanhood with my transition - and be stronger than the political climate that's pulling me into pieces. But if it's peace that I want... I can just forget about it. There's no road there. But I have trouble letting go of that simple dream. The internet is constantly manipulating me into thinking I have an exciting social life, when in fact it's non-existent, and the lie is destructive. With internet vs real life, I'm living a double life. One of those lives has a future, the other one does not.

I'm glad I made this rant. It actually made me feel better, and reminded me that it's still worth it. Being trans, moving forward, focusing on what is good and what can become good in life. And it reminded me that the internet is merely an imitation of life, a substitute for human connection, and can... as with much else, be both good and bad.

#discourse #venting #tired of being pulled in opposing directions #because im not the right kinda trans #or the right kinda feminist #i have to live with myself and i dont know how #focusing back on what actually matters in life #just thoughts #gender politics #ok to rb

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merakiui · 4 years

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Hi sorry if I’m bothering but I was just wondering if you had any general headcannons for Nine or the rest of Noctu? Love your writing by the way❤️❤️.

Noctu General HCs (Aitachi, Kirr, Nine, and Day)

🎯 Aitachi 🎯

He’s always training because he wants to become a stronger Soul Reaper. His main motivation for that is you, his encouraging Manager.

Aitachi likes to train alongside you and Kirr. The three of you make a great team and whenever you seem to grow tired he’ll be there with a cold bottle of water and some healthy snacks to revive your energy.

He won’t admit it, but he tends to get embarrassed when he struggles to interact with modern technology properly. He usually learns from the others how to operate his SNS, but he seems to actually listen when he’s getting pointers from you.

He’s Kirr’s hunting buddy. The two of them probably fish together and they’d be happy to go camping with everyone if it’s brought up.

Introduce him to modern television and he’ll fall in love with all of those survival shows. The more outdoorsy, the better!

Aitachi likes to tell you stories of his tribe. If you ask, he’ll be so happy, proudly explaining more about his coming-of-age ceremony and what it’s like to experience life in his tribe.

He’s very awkward with modern language and will often talk in a stiff manner, sometimes using phrases that are commonly spoken within his tribe.

Despite his age and height, he is quite knowledgeable when it comes to survival and the outside world. Although there are many changes he is unfamiliar with, which is usually the always-updating types of technology.

Aitachi struggles to navigate the Internet and sometimes he ends up on the strangest sites with no qualms as to how he got there in the first place. One minute he’s trying to search up images of the land where his tribe lived and now he’s on a website that’s listing nearby properties for sale.

Autocorrect is his enemy and he can never fully wrap his head around those virtual helpers (Alexa, Siri, Cortana, etc.).

🏹 Kirr 🏹

Aitachi is his best friend and closest ally when it comes to anything and everything. He’s eternally grateful to have someone who understands as much about hunting and survival as he does, especially when he feels so lost in the modern world.

Kirr is probably more accustomed to the modern world than Aitachi is, but there are still moments where he struggles to keep up.

He loves to go on nature walks with the manager, but his favorite outing would have to be hunting with them. If they’re not a fan of that, he doesn’t mind a simple stroll through the woods.

He does not understand many jokes, especially those that use Internet slang or texting lingo. He’s especially confused about words like ‘simp’ and ‘pog.’

Kirr definitely enjoys wildlife shows just like Aitachi, but his favorites are usually about how animals hunt. There’s always a glimmer of intrigue in those quiet eyes when he watches a lion stalking its prey.

He’s not the best at communication and will sometimes say something that may give off the wrong impression or cause a misunderstanding. But for the sake of the manager, he wants to always try his best to improve these aspects of himself.

He does not understand flirting at all. Like jokes and the modern world, Kirr has trouble adjusting to these lighthearted tones. If the manager ever flirts with him, it’s usually one-sided and he always appears confused.

Most of the time he’ll accept whatever it is you’re telling him, especially if it’s meant to be nice. But he won’t flirt back or say anything that’s supposed to be funny because he just doesn’t understand it.

If you’re someone who likes puns and jokes, he’ll probably want to learn a little more, if only to understand you whenever you start to joke with him.

He may be serious and not at all as talkative as the other Reapers, but that doesn’t mean he’s unhappy. He’s just confused, but he’s got the spirit!

🎼 Nine 🎼

Nine is always so graceful and polite, which makes him quite the persuasive Reaper. He often finds ways to get Day to do things for him and most of it is under an innocent pretense.

Despite what some may think, he does genuinely care for those he manages to get close to. He trusts the manager and Day the most, but there are still things he won’t tell them.

He’s very good at avoiding conversations that make him uncomfortable and he won’t usually tell someone if they’re crossing a line of discomfort. He’ll just calmly redirect the conversation.

Nine probably enjoys classic literature and poetry from older time periods. He likes to compare it to today’s writing to see what has changed.

He also enjoys classical music of all sorts and will try to replicate his own versions in unique compositions. Music theory and the history of music are topics that also intrigue him, and he likes to pore over information related to that in hopes of learning more to improve his own skills.

Nine’s the type of Reaper you can rant to if you’re ever feeling down, but don’t expect him to vent about own troubles in return. He’ll comfort you to an extent, but it still seems like he’s reserved.

He likes all things peaceful: melodic piano music, zen gardens, calligraphy, and even simple poetry. He would definitely enjoy stargazing because it’s such a calming activity.

There are days when Nine’s lazy side shows and as a result of this he’ll get Day to do his tasks for him. He’s very clever when it comes to slipping away from patrols and Day’s often left with two times the amount of work.

Nine hides most of his true feelings behind a passive smile and only ever vents through his compositions, which he only shows to those he truly values.

He is surprisingly good at reading the atmosphere in a room and knows how to quell an uncomfortable mood.

🍦 Day 🍦

You’ll never see him sad unless it’s something truly serious and dire. Day is always a constant ray of sunshine like Ell.

He’s very carefree and casual, wanting to be friends with everyone in the 14th Department. Once he believes he’s made friends with someone, he’ll be willing to do anything for that person.

Day is like a huge puppy. He gets excited easily and loves being around people. There’s never a dull moment with him.

He loves to bake with Nine and the manager, as they are his two favorite people in the whole world. Day often feels incomplete without them by his side and he loves to help them whenever he gets the chance.

Day doesn’t like to see the bad sides in people and will focus on their positive qualities instead. He believes that everyone can get along if there’s a happy environment and good food!

He’ll get upset if he finds that his Soul Reapers aren’t getting along and will even cry if anyone acts particularly mean towards him or his friends.

Day loves emoticons, especially the cute and happy ones. He feels like he can fully express himself with a few emojis and he’s probably the type to spam text messages, most of which aren’t actually coherent sentences but just strings of emojis.

Another thing he loves about the manager is when they help him when he’s in distress! Sometimes he’ll trip if he’s running too fast and as much as the injury may hurt everything feels better the minute his manager bandages it. He’ll be even happier if they pretend to kiss it, promising that it’s a charm for faster healing.

When he’s with Kati, chaos and trouble ensues, as the both of them are far too energetic to contain.

He wants to try making his own ice cream with Nine and the manager, but he can never wrap his head around the process.

#afterl!fe #after l!fe #afterl!fe headcanons #afterl!fe hcs #afterl!fe noctu team #afterl!fe night team #noctu #afterl!fe aitachi #afterl!fe kirr #afterl!fe nine #afterl!fe day #general headcanons

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jungshookz · 4 years

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top5 times grumpy yn was not so grumpy..?

YES i missed grumpy y/n

we all know that jimin is the sensitive little baby in this relationship so it’s not a huge surprise that one time he started tearing up because he accidentally killed a ladybug (it landed on his knuckle and when he tried to get it to trot to his finger he accidentally swiped it and smoOshed it) and everyone was teasing him because it’s just a bug!!!! why are you shedding tears over a little red bug??? and you would think that y/n would join in on the teasing because she loves making fun of jimin but no!! she wiped his tears away and told him that it wasn’t his fault and it was just an accident!! and then she dug a tiny hole into the ground to bury the ladybug while jimin was sniffling next to her and the whole time she kept telling him that mrs. ladybug probably lived a long and happy life :-)

y/n is very hardcore and possessive when it comes to brownies (it’s not her fault!!!! she LOVES brownies) but sometimes jimin gives all of the brownies away and there ends up being none left for him and when that happens she always rips a chunk off of her piece and feeds it to him :’) and it always makes her heart go pit-pat when she sees how happy jimin is when she offers him a bite :’) (but he’s only allowed to take one bite because she has to eat toO)

y/n loves taking naps and usually she likes to be left alone on the couch or she’ll go to her bedroom while jimin works in the living room (he always goes over to her apartment just to study because her internet is faster) but lately she hasn’t been able to nap properly withouT jimin in the room (since quarantine started they’ve been spending a lot of time together) so sometimes jimin will be typing away at his laptop but then he’ll look up to see a sleepy y/n with a pillow tucked under her arm and she doesn’t need to say anything for him to know what she wants!! she’ll just plop the pillow on jimin’s lap and lie down and then jimin will go right back to work (she also really likes it when he plays with her hair because it helps her go to sleep faster)

if there’s one thing y/n hates most in the entire world it hAS to be pda (we’ve talked about this plenty of times) because she doesn’t see what the point is of kissing in public when you can do it in private?? and in private you can do more than just kiss toO??? the only reason why pda exists is because people want to flaunt their dumb relationships!!! she’d write a whole essay on why pda is stupid if she could!!! on the other hand she knows that jimin LOVES pda because he’s into all that ooey gooey bullcrap and sometimes she notices him looking at other couples who are swinging their hands together as they walk or are giving each other piggy back rides and she can’t help but feel bad because she wants to give him that but at the same time she doesn’t want to do it!! so her way of letting him know that she’s trying her dang best is that she’ll bring his hand up and give him a little kiss on the back of his knuckles before letting go of his hand and pretending like she didn’t do anything at all :’) and jimin thinks it’s so CUTE when she does that!! one time she was even brave enough to give him a kiss on the CHEEK and he was truly blown away

jimin’s always been passionate when it comes to... pretty much everythinG which means he has the ability to blah blah blah about any given subject because everything excites him!!! and y/n isn’t that much of a talker and also isn’t that much of a listener so you’d think it’d irritate her to be dating someone whose mouth runs a mile a minute but no!! she’s always very attentive when jimin’s ranting but most of the time she’s not paying attention to what he’s saying and she’s just staring at her pretty boyfriend <3

in conclusion grumpy!y/n is only soft for jimin and no one else

#answered #grumpy!jimin #baby drabbles #grumpy!jimin drabbles

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emmalenalouisaellis · 4 years

Text

Dear Diary ~ Reflecting on Personal and Public Scribbles

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

I preface this by saying this is not a complaint against computers. I have one, and for much of my adult life, I have worked on a computer.

Typing is faster, smoother, and even though it's not foolproof, it has some form of spell-check. Or, since Word isn't always a comprehensive lexicon - something that can be found in a Google search or too - it is much easier to look through than an extensive, cumbersome dictionary. Simply put, having a laptop is the ideal solution for a dyslexic writer like myself who has to sometimes wade through dozens of notebooks and character sheets, plot points and extended drafts to ensure that I can bash out something vaguely resembling a novel.

But, ever since I was a little girl, I have always looked forward to Christmas time. Because amongst the assortment of brightly and delicately wrapped gifts, I find myself with a brand new and unmarked diary. Every time, I feel the crisp, clean pages on my fingers, the soft, secure spine, where the neatly cut ribbon falls in matching or contrasting colours. I take up my favourite pen and write my name, neatly as I can on the front page. This, more than any other present, belongs to me. It will become my secret, my confidant, in a way that still charms me. A perfectly imperfect, personal collection of handwritten scribbles. A permanent memento of me that will still exist despite the ever-growing digital age.

And with the pandemic showing it isn't "over yet", One might think that even here, as I write my thoughts over the internet, such things are archaic and cumbersome. Because as time goes on, more and more of us are clustering around screens to stay connected with loved ones or work colleagues - the world' Zoom'ing by as we are encouraged to remain apart, at home and sensible.

But to me, there still needs to be a balance. We can choose to broadcast everything - some of us do: posting publically to our friends we've met online and face to face through the years - using social media.

As one of my public faces, even my Tumblr has been meticulously polished, written and rewritten in a bid to be 'likeable' or 'relatable'. This is partly because I love receiving comments and recommendations here, and seeing someone gave it a note makes me feel like my words are validated. (For all those that do - old and new: Thank you).

The whole thing is very much a viewing platform and snapshots I feel noteworthy and vital enough to broadcast in many ways. It’s the sitcom of my life and that of others, and all of it plays out from the comfort of our own homes to keep others from worry and concern, all whilst sparking general curiosity. Talking points.

Ida Lupino (c. 1952). Courtesy Film Forum via Photofest

Whereas, in contrast, writing a diary feels more individual. Here I can rant and cry or smile and sigh without judgement and filters, simply recording my own reflections on the page without an audience. And there is something so aesthetically pleasing about it that you can't get from a typed out document. Sometimes there is blood from papercuts, ink splatters where I scribbled too fast, dried tears and smudges from my hand - but all of it is raw, personal and mine.

As someone with learning disabilities, I find it difficult sometimes to open up to others. But my diary is somewhere just for me, and very often, the words flow.

A diary is a beautiful expression of self-love, sometimes loathing by me and for me.

If we choose to share it, it reflects trust and openness, which I suppose is why there are so many cliché moments in teen dramas of girls feeling violated when they have their diary snatched and read by their peers.

But that’s the problem and the wonderful appeal of books: they can quickly transport us to another world.

When I was younger, I was by chance glancing over my Granny’s bookshelves when I found what would become one of my favourite books ‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady' by Edith Holden.

Since its first publication in 1906, the book has charmed many with its beautiful drawings of wild and garden flowers and a hint of charming recordings and recolections in words and paintings the flora and fauna of the British countryside in the four beautiful seasons.

Much like her work - little stories and poems in my own diaries. I fill them with recipes, pressed flowers, autumn leaves and ticket stubs or add poems I’ve also fallen in love with when writer’s block strikes.

When I can, I love to write in fountain pen with flowing blue or green ink, or make more occasional, frantic scribbles in pencil. In contrast to my organised, documents and manuscripts, I am confident there are many spelling mistakes littering the pages. But that’s part of the charm.

And the internet can often help enhance these futher. You only have to go on Pinterest to find beautiful pictures to print out or post in virtual corkboards and scrapbooks. Thanks to the interconnected world wide web, there are plenty of poems I can search for and add into my diaries to compliment my own ideas. For example on the blog by Bella’s Rose Cottage I came across this beautiful little poem:

“The kind of flowers,

I find to be the workhorse of my cottage garden…

the self seeders,

who behave a bit naughty…

the sort of flowers that give the garden

that lived in look,

like the magic of finding a secret garden,

wild around the edges…

flowers to press in the pages of a book,

to remind you of a lazy summers day…

tucked into a little nook to sip quietly…

watch the puppies frolic…

a day to maybe,

use long seedpods of the Toadflax,

as a book mark…

and enjoy a nap…..”

- Bella Rogers

It was so pretty, that it helped inspire me to write this post. Spring is now upon us and with it a chance to reflect and enjoy new beginnings - and opportunities. It’s nearly the weekend and now with renewed inspiration, the words are once more flowing freely from my fingers as the creative itch begins as always with those magical words:

'Dear Diary,'

I wonder what I shall write about today…

Have a beautiful day

x Emmalena

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usednapkin · 4 years

Text

It’s Been Too Long... And I Know Long... Long... Long~ Long~ MAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN~~~~

Long...

Long!

Long~

(moaning and heavy breathing)

If you don’t get that reference, don’t worry. Nobody is perfect. The Japanese really know how to make a great commercial series.

You’re gonna look it up now, aren’t you?

I feel like I used this reference before in my past blogs... can you blame me for not remembering? It’s been ages since I did this again. I’ve grown from a boy to a bigger boy. My gut is bigger. My double chin is doubler. I shave every week now. I drink tea sometimes. Adulthood is a busy lifestyle.

But it’s not only adulthood that’s been making things busy - of course I’m talking about the new trend of putting a fake penis next to your loved one and see if they cuddle with it in their sleep. Apparently, it will instantly get you a hundred thousand followers on TikTok. Try it out! I won’t lie to you!

I joke, that’s a fake trend. But now you’re thinking about whether it would actually be plausible. I dunno man, anything is possible in this world. And right now, we are living in a historical time. Covid19? Black Lives Matter? I wear contacts now? What’s going on?

Seriously though... it feels kinda weird to be doing this blog. I never realized how much it helped me, doing this on a regular basis. Just me and my third computer, typing out my thoughts - it can be very therapeutic, but it also helps me with my creative process. I also learn to type a little bit faster.

OFFICE JOBS, HERE I COME. #adulthood

Where do I even begin? What do I blog about when there are so many things to talk about? I could talk about how Covid19 affected my life, I can talk about how the BLM movement changed my perspective on how I view the world - but I’m not here to talk about issues in the world, I’m here to entertain, and break down my thoughts in a way that confuses eighty percent of the internet population.

And rant about how stupid customers can be.

I still work the same job - been at it for six years now, like hol--you know what? Let’s talk about how Covid19 affected my workplace. So I work in a grocery store - “Living the dream,” as one of the managers calls it - and during the first couple of weeks that the news declared a global pandemic, oh man... it was fun.

...Is that a weird thing to say?

You have to imagine, my job isn’t the most stressful, eventful, entertaining or fun place to work at, but when the pandemic rolled through. we were busy as fuck, Customers were rolling in, ready to prepare for the worst. And this was before we started to regulate the flow of customers. If the music was super loud, it would’ve been a bangin’ grocery store club.

But they would have to dance to Haven’t Met You Yet by Michael Bublé.

Imagine your parents grinding to that.

BASS DROPS.

You all probably think that the toilet paper was the first to go--AND YOU’RE RIGHT. It went along with the hand sanitizer and Lysol wipes, but did you know that all the frozen foods, pasta, canned food, and fresh meat were almost emptied? At one point, a customer asked if we were selling barren shelves. I threw pickles at him.

Aside from all the sales, customers were being rowdy. People were on edge about getting in and out of the store, people tried to slip ahead of the line by explaining injuries that we couldn’t prove was real, I saw these two ladies fight over the last bag of shrimp, this drunk man ate a frozen chicken pie that was on sale for a dollar, this white lady overtly yelled out how she felt threatened by a pregnant black lady standing in line with her husband--

--okay, I may have used situations that weren’t due to covid19, but you get it.

Damn it, Grocery Gabby.

The store was probably seventy percent more chaotic than it would be. I don’t work in the front, so I didn’t see much of the action, but there was a lot more yelling. The owners got into a lot of fights with the customers. A couple of them even got physical. This was the first time that my ordinary job felt like it was a threat to my well-being.

It was kinda thrilling.

But of course, at the same time, it was something that I did not want to last. Later, when the world started to learn more about the virus, and we got our toilet paper supply back, everything basically went back to normal. I miss the days where I was able to bike to work on the empty streets... And I miss my temporary, very short-lived hazard pay.

Yeah, we don’t get that anymore. Our customers aren’t in bad condition like they are in the hospitals. I knew it wouldn’t last, which is why I asked for extra hours during that period. Smart of me, huh? I also had nothing much to do at home, so there was that. Lockdown and everything, y’know?

I look forward to the day where we won’t have to wear our masks in the store again. I mean, I was wearing one before the pandemic happened because Asian style, but now I kinda miss seeing the faces of my coworkers. I also met a few new ones for the past year and I don’t think I’ve ever seen their real faces. I mean, do they have a round chin or pointy one? Do they have moles like me? How’s the condition of their teeth? How can she have boobs so big, yet grow more chin hairs than I can?

These are the important questions in life.

But that’s work in a nutshell. Occasionally, we have issues with anti-maskers, but those customers make up like, two percent of the total that enter our store. Some are even conscious about distance, meaning that they KNOW they choose not to wear a mask, so therefore they try and keep their distance even more from you. It happened to me a couple of times.

But seriously, if you can, wear a mask.

Why do adults hate the idea of being told what to do? Is it their pride? Is it because they feel threatened of the idea that someone is smarter than them? Are they tall, ugly-shaped babies or something? I kinda get it, you’re an adult, and you shouldn’t be told how to live your life and be told what to do by someone else, but when lives are being at risk, think about your loved ones. Is it really worth your pride and ego?

I digress. TL;DR: My first year of covid19 was an eventful one.

“Was it though?”

Yes Bob, it was.

Now I just have to have faith in humanity to be able to combat this virus until it’s demise. Hopefully we can try and stop it before the variants become too strong. I miss people. Until then, I’ll still be stocking shelves with a bunch of employees who look like ninjas.

Retail Jutsu.

Our ninja stars are crackers.

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virgilsinferno · 4 years

Photo

meet me in the middle || logince

chapter 2 — leave the window open for me

summary: the twins try to set up patton & virgil by hosting a sleepover. remus makes questionable life decisions.

pairings: high key moxiety, dukeceit (if you squint)

tw: mentions of hospitals & injuries

word count: 2987

[logan is not in this chapter but he is mentioned like once]

taglist: @dragonwithproblems @b0mblebee

ao3 || 1

♡

At the back of the shop, there’s a tiny storage room filled with boxes and a wall of post-it notes. It’s a cramped space, but the twins figured out a way to make it bearable. There’s a bookshelf, some fake plants, a few pictures, and of course, the whiteboard. The whiteboard was previously used for reminders, but bit by bit, they started filling it up with random doodles.

They constantly tried to one-up each other with every new addition to the whiteboard. Who could draw the most accurate anatomy? Who was better at dynamic poses? There was always an unspoken competition between the two siblings. It was practically in their nature to be competitive.

So far, Remus was winning but only because Roman’s usually the one at the counter while Remus took care of packages and inventory. Or at least that’s what Roman liked to tell himself.

Working at his dad’s flower shop wasn’t too bad, in fact, Roman loved working there. During his first few months at the shop, he was obsessed with flower meanings. And making bouquets. What he didn’t expect though, was cleaning. He had somehow forgotten that he was working with plants, and working with plants got messy. Petals and leaves kept falling off, dirt got all over the floor, and children loved messing with everything they could touch.

It’s been a busy day. Roman sat behind the counter, thinking that he’ll finally be able to relax after he finished trimming flowers and sweeping the floor. He was thankful that he only worked on Saturdays, otherwise, he’d have to stress about strangers’ wedding preparations as well.

Speaking of weddings, he had to attend one in about 3 weeks. They weren’t in charge of the flowers so he didn’t have to stress about that, but he strongly disliked a certain cousin of his. He was not looking forward to it. He’s probably ranted about how much he hated this particular cousin to all his internet friends.

“Boys, you two go on ahead, I’ll close up the shop!” their dad yelled from the storage room. The twins shared a look.

“Race ya!” Remus said as he dashed out of the shop. Roman quickly ran out after him, chasing him down the street.

It was part of their post-work ritual. The racing, that is. After work, they would run to Espresso Feelings and whoever arrived last was paying. Sometimes Patton would be there and they’d talk about the latest gossip they’ve heard at school.

The sky was getting dark and droplets of rain began to fall. It was only a matter of seconds before it would start pouring. Neither of the two brought an umbrella, but the coffee shop wasn’t too far away. A group of kids passed by, running and giggling with their arms stretched to the side, enjoying the breeze that came with the drizzle. They reminded Roman of him and his brother when they were much younger. They still do that sort of shit as teenagers.

Remus was winning, but only because Roman was waiting for the rain to lash down. Or at least that was his excuse for not running faster. It was getting chilly though, which only gave him more reason to buy coffee at this hour.

“You’re paying, slowpoke!” Remus said as he dramatically opened the door to the shop. He immediately went to the counter to order their usual.

Roman sat down at their usual spot, the table near the corkboard. He spotted Patton speaking to some guy in a purple hoodie on the other side of the shop. The guy looked familiar, so Roman assumed he had seen him around at school before. He called out Patton’s name and waved, and he waved back as well. The guy left with a brown paper bag in hand and Patton walked over to the twins’ table. The rain was already pouring, so it was a good thing that the guy had an umbrella with him.

“Ro, you’ll never guess what just happened!” Patton said with a huge grin on his face. He was practically bouncing with excitement.

“You won the lottery?” Roman asked, eyes wide, with the same level of excitement Patton had.

“No, even better! I got Virgil’s number!” Patton squealed with delight as he sat down next to Roman, flaunting Virgil’s contact on his phone.

“Oh, great,” Roman said with fake enthusiasm. Who the fuck?

Remus sat down opposite to Roman and placed a tray down on their table. “I didn’t know Emo was your type.”

“Wait, are we talking about the guy with the purple hoodie?” Roman asked as he pointed to the front door.

“Yeah, him!” Patton said, stealing a forkful of Roman’s chocolate cake. “I assumed you would know him since, you know, he’s Logan’s best friend? And you hate-read his social m-”

“I do not!” Roman interjected, taking his fork back from Patton in a playful manner.

“You do,” Remus said in a sing-songy voice. “Sometimes he barges into my room in the middle of the night just to tell me what atrocity Logan posted on Instagram.”

“It was one time!” Roman finally admitted. “Why are we talking about me, we’re supposed to be talking about Patton’s love life!”

“Oh, right! I do have to get back to work though, but I could come over later and we could talk about boys?” Patton suggested. They often had sleepovers especially during finals week, but as much as they’d try to focus on studying, they always ended up goofing off and doing typical sleepover activities.

“Fuck yes, sleepover middle-school-style!” Remus said, high-fiving Patton.

Patton patted the top of their heads before returning to the counter. Since Roman had already finished his chocolate cake, he stole a piece of Remus’s blueberry muffin. It quickly escalated into a competition between the two of them to see who could finish their coffee first. That was the fun part of having siblings. Everything was a competition.

Roman slammed down his cup, grinning from ear to ear. He basked in his moment of victory as Remus scowled. By that time, the rain had already stopped, which meant that it was probably time for them to go home. The twins waved goodbye to the baristas before walking out the door and heading home. The pavement was wet, and knowing Remus, he was going to run, slip, and end up with an injury. Roman kept a close eye on his brother just in case. Remus had already been in and out of the hospital 4 times in the past two months and frankly, Roman was getting tired of his constant injuries and poor decisions.

Their house wasn’t too far away, so they walked home most of the time. They learned not to trust Remus with a car after the whole driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road incident. No one liked to talk about it. Well, except for Remus, who mentioned it several times to everyone he had ever sat next to in class.

Once they arrived in front of their house, Roman got momentarily distracted by the sound of soft meows. An adorable little kitten was playing in their garden, and as much as Roman wanted to pick it up, he was highly allergic.

“Ree, look! It’s a-” Roman paused and looked around, noticing that his brother was no longer beside him. “Oh no.”

He frantically ran to the backyard and spotted Remus already on a tree branch, attempting to get to his room from the tree. He saw his brother and waved at him.

“Ro, could you open the window from my room?” He yelled, gesturing to the closed window. He momentarily lost his balance, but caught the tree branch above him before he could plummet down to the ground.

“Absolutely not, you incorrigible buffoon!” Roman yelled back. He sighed, tugging at his hair. On one hand, it would be funny. On the other, they would get in trouble and that won’t be funny at all.

“Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious? I know you are!”

So maybe he was a little bit curious. But that didn’t mean it was safe to do. Then again, he wasn’t the most reasonable person either. As long as Remus knows what he’s doing, he should be fine, right? Then again, Remus never knew what he was doing and he turned out okay.

“Okay, I’m convinced,” Roman said after much thought. Remus cheered and did a victory dance, careful enough to not fall off of the tree.

Roman ran inside the house, greeting his parents a quick “hello” as he passed by the kitchen. He dashed straight to Remus’s room, opened the window, then gestured for him to get in.

“Wait, get this on video,” Remus said as he tossed his phone through the window. Thankfully, Roman had good reflexes and caught it, otherwise, it might have shattered.

Roman gave him the signal. Remus pounced off of the tree and caught the windowsill. Using his upper body strength, he pushed himself upwards and rolled right into his room.

“Holy shit,” Remus panted, clearly out of breath. “Give me my phone, I wanna see!”

“I am never letting you do that again,” Roman said as Remus replayed the video.

“Oh you will. I can tell.” Remus said, forwarding the video to multiple group chats. Several people were typing. He watched in amusement as people freaked out over his little stunt. The twins could tell that it would be the talk of the school on Monday. Not that they didn’t like the attention, in fact, they loved receiving attention.

After the excitement and adrenaline died down, Roman lied down on the bed, listening to Remus rant about his plans for the upcoming auditions for the Battle of the Bands. They held the auditions as early as 3 months before the event, which would give enough time for the contestants to practice.

“So far, there’s me on the bass, Virge on the drums, and you as lead vocalist. You think Jay would wanna be lead guitar?” Remus said as he tuned his electric bass.

“I don’t know, ask him.” Roman replied. “Hold on a sec, Virgil? As in Patton’s crush?”

“Of fucking course, how many damn Virgils are there at school?” Remus rolled his eyes, chucking a pencil at his brother.

Roman sat up. He had a brilliant idea. “So, Patton’s coming over. Why don’t you invite Virgil and we do a little bit of matchmaking?”

Remus’s eyes widened. “Fuck, shit, you’re a motherfucking genius!” He scrambled to get his phone and sent a quick text to Virgil. It only took Remus mentioning that Patton would be there for Virgil to agree. Patton usually arrived around 10-ish, so Remus told him to come around 9. It would give them enough time to pull some strings.

Roman returned his attention to his phone, which apparently had dozens of notifications from Twitter. As always, he checked his dms first before the mentions. He was sure that several people had already posted Remus’s stunt and tagged both him and his brother.

Vi, his internet friend, was at the very top of his dms. It could only mean one thing. Or two things, rather. Boy problems or life problems. Or both at the same time. Ironically, they started out as enemies on the internet. A misunderstanding, of sorts.

personification of anxiety

@vergeofdeath

vi: yo princey

vi: fuck

vi: i’m spending the night with my crush

vi: holy shit

vi: i just gave him my number like a few hours ago??

princey: 👀

princey: don’t be too loud

vi: BITCH

vi: NOT LIKE THAT

vi: we’re staying over at my friend’s house

princey: that’s funny ‘cause my bro & i are hosting a mini sleepover too

princey: he invited over a friend bc our other friend has a crush on him

vi: dude

vi: coincidence???

vi: i’ve never spoken to my friend’s bro before but he’s gonna be there ofc

vi: he’s like enemies with my best bud

princey: omg that’s so weird

princey: my twin’s bff is my enemy

princey: but like,, you know that,, i tell you that all the time

vi: woah hold on u have a twin??? u never mentioned a twin???

vi: i just assumed ur bro was near ur age??

vi: bitch my friend has a twin

vi: the fucking coincidences,, they’re everywhere

princey: don’t tell me ur a drummer too jhksdgfks

vi: BITCH

vi: I AM A DRUMMER

princey: holy fucking shit

vi: holy fucking shit indeed

“Boys, dinner!” Their mom called out from the kitchen. The twins immediately dashed out of the door, pushing each other as they tried to get to the dining table first.

Since it was a Saturday, they were having seafood. Dinners were always eventful. Roman and Remus told their parents about the sleepover and Remus jumping off of the tree, which should’ve gotten them in trouble but their mom found it hilarious and let it slide. Their dad talked about his clients that were planning on a halloween-themed wedding, and their mom talked about the new tv show she was in.

Overall, dinner went well. It was Remus’s turn to wash the dishes, so Roman returned to his room. His room was bigger so they would be using that one for the sleepover. He noticed that his nail polish was starting to chip off, so he brought out his pouch of nail polish from under the bed. There was a lot of clutter there, things such as old textbooks from freshman year, Remus’s broken drumsticks, some guitar picks, and expired makeup. He should get around to cleaning that, though he’s been meaning to do that for months now.

By the time Remus finished washing dishes, there were several post-it notes stuck to the wall with various reminders such as to clean the space under the bed, buy new shoes, upgrade to a loft bed, buy oil paints, and water the plants. Roman already started on the pillow fort, so Remus lounged on the bed and looked up what good horror movies are on Netflix.

Another reason why they often used Roman’s room for sleepovers was that he had a tv. It was originally supposed to be in Remus’s room, but he had a habit of breaking everything he could touch. It was a wonder they could trust him with dishes. On the other hand, Remus’s room was good for band practices or jamming out in general. He had instruments all over the place and they had it soundproofed so that the neighbors would stop complaining about the loud drumming at 2 a.m.

Once Virgil arrived, their plan was set into motion.

“So, I know we don’t talk at all, but just pretend that we’ve been good friends for a long time. I have a plan.” Roman said as he led the way to his room.

Virgil looked at him skeptically. “You know, Logan’s told me a lot about you.”

“All good things, I hope?” Roman asked.

“Quite the opposite actually,” Virgil smirked. He notices a few posters put up of Fall Out Boy and Waterparks. “But since you do have a good taste in music, so I’ll let it slide.”

During the short period of time that he left his brother alone in his room, Remus managed to trash his vanity. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Roman took this opportunity to strike a conversation. “Ree mentioned you play drums?”

“Yeah, we’re planning on auditioning for the Battle of the Bands.” Virgil said, sending a quick message to one of his internet friends. “Has he asked you to join our band yet?”

Roman’s phone buzzed.

“Well, yeah. He sort of asked? I agreed, of course. Then he was like, ‘Oh good, I was going to poison you if you didn’t’. I’m used to it by now.”

Virgil chuckled. “He tried to poison me once ‘cause I stomped on his foot with my combat boots.”

“That was you? Oh my god, I owe you for that one!” Roman said, laughing at the memory of his brother crying in the school clinic. Turns out, they got along quite well.

Their conversation was cut short when they heard knocks at the door. It was Patton and he arrived way earlier than expected. Remus pushed Virgil towards the door and mouthed “open it”. The twins high-fived each other and hid inside the pillow fort.

“Hey Pat-”

As soon as Virgil opened the door, Patton’s face turned pink. He took a deep breath, puffed his cheeks, and closed the door. Virgil was too confused to move and the twins were slightly worried.

Patton reopened the door and held out a container of cookies. “Hi Virge! I uh, didn’t expect to see you here… haha… what a coincidence?” He said awkwardly.

Virgil took the cookies, but Remus bolted out of the fort and took it from Virgil’s hands.

“You fucking gremlin!” Roman yelled, chasing Remus out of the room, who had started devouring cookies. Remus laughed maniacally, shoving past Virgil and Patton in order to get away from his brother.

“Are they always like this?” Virgil asked, pointing at the twins who were now wrestling in the hallway.

Patton hummed. “Yeah, most of the time.”

The twins fought over the cookies for a while until realization hit them.

Roman paused. He whispered something to Remus, and he stopped as well. The two began cursing and muttering something about “the plan” whilst pointing in Virgil and Patton’s direction.

Right, the plan.

“Music!” Remus shouted, dragging Virgil and Patton to his room.

“What he meant to say was that we should play something together,” Roman informed the two. They nodded awkwardly.

“Is Janus coming too?” Patton asked.

Shit. Roman forgot to invite him.

“Oh um, I don’t know? I’ll have to ask.” Roman said.

He took out his phone and sent a text that read “COME OVER ASAP”. Janus replied immediately, saying to leave the window open and that he’ll get in the room in a Remus fashion.

Great, he was going to be the fifth wheel tonight.

#meet me in the middle #logince fanfic #logince #sanders sides #thomas sanders #enemies to lovers #roman sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #deceit sanders #janus sanders #high school au #virgil sanders #patton sanders #dukeceit #demus #moxiety

16 notes · View notes

narcoleptic-drag-queen · 4 years

Note

rotox for 15 would be cuteeeee

SO CUTE!! Also, this got long, I’m so sorry - tell me if I should put a ‘read more’ on here

Roxxxy does not do online dating.

It’s a mixture of principle and safety - she doesn’t need to stoop to scouring the internet for someone who’s interested in her, and she prefers to meet people face to face, not through a screen. A profile picture doesn’t mean shit, and it’s really not possible to know who you’re talking to until they’re standing in front of you. It’s just easier to find people at bars or clubs, faster to figure out if they’re cute or not, witty or not, better when she can have solid proof of identity.

None of this can explain why she’s sitting in bed at 1 am staring at Tinder, but Alaska is scarily persuasive and Roxxxy couldn’t deny that getting likes and matches weren’t boosting her self esteem significantly.

“Fuck her,” Alaska had said, after Roxxxy had finished her third rant in just as many weeks about her ex. “You know what you need? Statistics.”

She’d been very helpful in setting up the profile and telling Roxxxy who to swipe left on, but once the clock hit eleven she’d headed off towards home, claiming that if she stayed any longer, Sharon would get worried. Roxxxy had felt a little twinge of jealousy, Alaska’s engagement ring glittering as she grabbed her purse, but she had let her friend go with a smile. She’ll find someone. Eventually.

She can feel her insecurities curling around her the longer she thinks about it, and she quickly shuts them down, turning her attention back to the glow of her phone.

Left. Left. Le-

Wait.

Her finger stutters over the face of the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen, with high cheekbones and a coy smile, her blue eyes glittering. She looks insane, with crimped, neon green hair and bright blue lipstick, and Roxxxy feels drawn to her immediately.

Roxxxy had told Alaska that this was just to see who liked her, not the other way around. She wasn’t looking for anything, especially on Tinder.

She swipes right.

The woman messages around five minutes later, and Roxxxy feels her heart skip a beat as she opens it, the little black words striking something like the fear of god into her.

Detox Icunt: night owl too? you’re already perfect ;)

Roxxxy takes too long thinking of a witty reply, deciding whether she should copy Detox’s texting style or stick to proper grammar, her heart in her throat as she presses send.

Roxxxy Andrews: I know I’m perfect, but are you really as beautiful as you are in your profile pic?

Detox replies with a photo. It’s the same woman, sans makeup, lying on what looks like a bright orange couch. She’s gorgeous, her blue eyes bright and her smirk doing something to Roxxxy’s belly.

Detox Icunt: no

Detox Icunt: i wear so much makeup you could accuse me of catfishing!

Roxxxy laughs a little, wondering if Detox knows just how close she’s gotten to Roxxxy’s wariness. She types a quick response, keeping up the flirting, becoming more comfortable in the face of this other woman’s humor. She feels comfortable already, and while she’s always been confident, the ease in which she can flirt with Detox surprises her.

Roxxxy Andrews: No. You might just be perfect. Too perfect.

Detox Icunt: are you accusing me of catfishing??? after i just sent a pic of me looking like the grim reaper??

Roxxxy Andrews: It’s not uncommon...

Detox Icunt: here. tell me to do something and i’ll send a pic of me doing it. since my beauty is so incredible

Several ideas spring to Roxxxy’s mind, and they all make her blush. She shoves them to the back of her mind. Calm down, Roxxxy.

Roxxxy Andrews: Put a glass on the top of your head.

Detox Icunt: yes maam

A photo comes in moments later of Detox holding a glass full of wine on top of her head, her hair an adorable floof around her face. Roxxxy wants more of her.

Roxxxy Andrews: Interesting... I think I need more proof. Make a stupid face.

Detox sends in a photo, one eye squinted shut and her mouth wide open in an agonized yell. Roxxxy laughs out loud.

Roxxxy Andrews: Very convincing. But I need more.

Detox Icunt: if you say so

And suddenly, the chat is flooded with pictures of Detox, all clearly from just now, and all clearly a result of her spamming her camera button as she makes face after face. Roxxxy laughs so hard she cries, the selfies never ceasing even as she cries for Detox to stop.

Roxxxy Andrews: Stop!! STOP

Roxxxy Andrews: No more!

Detox Icunt: okay, fine

Detox Icunt: i won’t send any more selfies

Detox Icunt: your loss ;)

Roxxxy grins at her phone, her heart lighter than it’s been in weeks.

Roxxxy Andrews: I think I need one final proof that you’re real. The only way I’ll know for sure is if I can see you with my own eyes.

Detox Icunt: Tomorrow? 8pm? That Italian place by Mateo’s?

Roxxxy feels her chest warm, excitement and nerves and hope making her want to dance around her room with joy.

Roxxxy Andrews: It’s a date.

send me a pairing and a number!

#prompts #ask game #writing #rotox

10 notes · View notes

cockbiteproductions · 4 years

Note

multiples of 8, except in the misc section. all even numbers for the misc section

200: My crush’s name is: well well well this question again. you’re not getting anything out of me!!! they fucking use this website!!!

192: I am allergic to: nothing. but i found out like yesterday not everyone gets dermatographia and im kinda annoyed. what do you mean your skin doesnt get red and puffy the moment you touch it......

184: Xbox or ps3: xbox solely because of ah

176: Last YouTube video watched: my watch history says this, which is a scene from a show called billions. this scene in particular is about my favorite character asking about their introduction scene with their former mentor figure that they quickly outranked and asking why they were picked for the internship that lead them down this [entire shitpath].

168: Luck: [long sigh]. [puts on clown makeup].

[obi wan voice] im my experience there’s no such thing as luck.

[rian voice] luck? there’s probability plausibility and actuality. luck is superstition. luck is lazy math. [winston voice] that’s what i always say.

160: Soul mates: again souls arent real..... nor do i believe that people are “meant for each other” on any sort of cosmic/larger level. you are more compatible with people based on your upbringing and your interests and your values and those are adaptable over time though some people are so different that they will never get along and other people match/complement each other incredibly well.

152: Phone or Online: lmaoooo this questionnaire once again showing its age. throwback to when these things weren’t synonymous. online for sure. what am i gonna do with a phone? talk to someone with my fucking voice? i think not.

144: Oranges or Apples: to eat by themselves? probably apples since they are easier and less of a mess. and apples are more consistently better than oranges. oranges, it’s easy to get a batch that just sucks. juiced? probably orange. i love me some fuckin orange juice. but i like apple cider more than orange juice.

136: Hillary or Obama: lmaoooo again.. the age of this. 2008 or 2012. going to guess 2008. obama but not like. enthusiastically. while he was certainly better than [what we got going on now] he still bombed the hell outta some countries......

128: Manicure or Pedicure: ive never had either but i would probably be more comfortable with a manicure. people touching my feet would make me ticklish.

120: Gay Marriage: the only type that should be allowed. sorry straights youre no longer allowed to get married. /s obviously.

112: Facebook: oh BOY are you fucking ready. are you???? im starting the readmore NOW because this is going to be something. i doubt anyone except robots maybe will actually read my deranged pro-privacy anti-facebook/social media/surveillance rant but im angry every time i think about it and if i were a more important person than a rando on the internet with a keyboard im sure facebook would hire someone to kill me one day.

FUCK FACEBOOK. FUCK THAT SHITTY ASS WEBSITE THAT AT EVERY TURN HAS BEEN REVEALED TO HAVE HORRIFYING PRACTICES OF DATA COLLECTION.

but before that, they need to pay some goddamn fucking taxes. they are profiting off the data of billions of people and getting away with paying SO LITTLE back.

you ever hear about deepface? no this is not the beginning of a prequel meme. deepface is facebook’s facial recognition technology and facial recognition is fucking terrifying. that shit is as good as humans at facial recognition at this point. does that not scare you? that a bunch of computers can figure out if this photo contains you or not? it’s one thing if humans recognize each other, but another thing when computers who can process data almost infinitely faster than humans can are able to do it. the scale and speed at which these fucking nightmares operates is hard for us to imagine and so we are all not scared enough of what they can do. this kind of technology is so deeply privacy violating it’s hard for me to stress it enough. every image of you ever uploaded on the internet could possibly be put through facial recognition tech. and with the fact that there are cameras literally everywhere at all times now at this point it’s so fucking possible that if desired, someone could find out where you are at all times. and that gets SO scary when used by governments. are you comfortable with your government knowing where YOU are at all times? yes? what about if tomorrow your government is overthrown by a group of radicals you completely disagree with? you still comfortable with that? facial recognition is kind of a fucking pandoras box that we are opening and now that we have the technology available to us, unless we actively take steps back from it, it WILL eventually/already is being used in malicious, intensely privacy invasive ways.

and everything in that above bullet point goes for ALL DATA COLLECTED ON YOU, EVER. everything you’ve ever said on facebook is probably put through some multi layered neural network fucking robot who is learning how to understand what humans say on your input and also cataloging things about you as a person. it is doing SO MUCH more than reading the exact text of what you are saying and then picking up on keywords. neural networks are an attempt to copy how humans think by making an artificial version of a brain basically. in simple terms it’s a map of points and connections and you feed it data for a while and tell it what the desired outcome should be. it will adjust those connections and the weight of those points based on your data and expected outcome. that change in connections and weights is how it learns. then after a while it has fed on enough data that it will begin to expect what your desired outcome is. now imagine millions and millions of connections and points. it’s fucking huge. you ever hear about how we don’t know how machine learning/deep learning/neural networks works? this is that. it’s because they are so large and they have changed their weights and points so much that we no longer understand how it makes its decisions. ml is on a deeper level starting to understand what you mean when you say words. like a human. and can pick up nuances humans cannot because of its perfect memory. do you understand how scary this is? do you? i really do not know how to express this better how absolutely buckshit wild and terrifying the idea that everything i say online can be scraped and put through a robot and a profile on me and who i am and my ideals can be gathered almost instantly. how hard would it be to write a scraper that goes to my blog and grabs the text of every post in my talk tag? and then there’s free and open source nlp software (or you can pay for it) and you can feed in everything ive said on this blog ever. you can go to my facebook. you can go to my twitter. you can find my profiles on every online platform ive ever used and take everything ive ever said and determine what kind of person i am based on that. and then you can then make further distinctions based on that data. (sidenote: facebook wouldnt have to scrape the data on my profile, it’s all in their databases already. they have everything ive ever posted on public or private, on my old profile i’ve deactivated, every photo ive posted or been tagged in, everything ive ever uploaded to their servers or have been associated with.) and someone or robot can make decisions about me based on that data. it could just be am i likely to buy [this product] or it could be something much more like am i a threat? am i dangerous to you, the person using this data about me? what are my politics? what are my views on [this topic]? are they too extreme? should i be denied [real life thing] based on what this machine has determined about me from my data online? not to sound fucking crazy, but you ever watch that episode of black mirror? nosedive? and its system where you can rate interactions with people? how this one girl was trying to increase her ranking so she would qualify for a cheaper price on housing? how we’re already starting to see things like this in real life with china’s social credit system?

call me a fucking wack job but i think it’s so deeply creepy that we have digitized so many aspects of our lives and leave machines we no longer understand how they make their decisions to analyze every bit of data about ourselves.

by the fucking way facebook tracks data on people WHO DO NOT USE FACEBOOK. FACEBOOK TRACKS DATA ON PEOPLE. WHO. DO. NOT. USE. FACEBOOK. are you scared? i am.

i’ve been thinking about this tweet from @/malwaretech on twitter from a few days ago. text: On a serious note, social media tracking is more extensive than you may think. For example: those Facebook 'like' buttons you see on every website? They call home. If you're logged into your FB account, it records that you visited that web page, even if you don't click 'like'. doesn’t that sound a lil fucked up to anyone else? that facebook knows that i visited that webpage even though i did not tell it? that it will use that data to build a better profile on what my interests are and that it will use that data to better sell ads to me? i’ll be honest i am unsure of if facebook sells that information to other vendors. i think that might be not allowed but i wouldn’t be surprised if that data somehow got into the hands of people who arent facebook.

the fact that for the longest time you could NOT get your data deleted from facebook? that even if you deactivated your account facebook would still keep all of that in their shit ass servers forever? as far as i know, that’s changed now, but i would not at all be surprised if the next day it was revealed that facebook was Actually Keeping all that info anyways

the fact that by default facebook’s privacy settings are set to allow anyone to see most info about you? just this whole opt out culture is so fucking wack. it should be opt in. your privacy settings should default on the MOST PRIVATE and it should be up to you to ACTIVELY SEARCH OUT how to change them to public. it is ON FACEBOOK to actively cultivate privacy but of fucking course they don’t.

lmao cambridge analytica politics russia brexit trump. i don’t have the energy to even open this fucking can of worms but i will say that again, another layer of deeply fucked up that political campaigns can use that data to try to coerce or influence elections.

do you remember when in 2019. yes twenty. fucking. nineteen. 2019. two thousand and nineteen. 2019. i dont know how more to stress how recent but late this is. 2019. facebook admitted that it and instagram were still. STILL. STILL. S T I L L. storing passwords as plaintext? meaning your password that is “password123ilovedogs” is stored AS “password123ilovedogs” in their database. it is STANDARD AND EXPECTED PRACTICE that websites store SECURE hashes of passwords (not like fucking. md5 or something) meaning you do a bunch of fucking “irreversible” math on the password and store that instead of the actual password itself. so the db would be storing “298!79v@w8W#R;3,f9jf” instead of your actual password. anyways face. fucking. book. was storing passwords as plain text. which means if they ever have a data breach on their passwords db then all that data inside will just be your actual goddamn password. your actual goddamn password. what the fuck? what the fuck? and we still use this website? we? me? i use this website daily? i use this website on a daily fucking basis and allow it to continue to collect information on me? im so goddamn angry.

the fact that now in this day and age you are considered weird for not having any social media? super fucked up. the fact that employers will check your social media and if you don’t have one that is somehow a red flag? weird as hell. why must we participate in the world’s largest data collection scandal ever just to be a member of society? i cannot choose to opt out. facebook collects data on me even if i do not have an account. society expects me to have some form of social media and if i do not then that i am the weird one for it. if you choose to live a life of trying not to be tracked it is almost impossible. can you live your life in modern society without an email address? without a smartphone or laptop? there is an expectation that every person is available to communicate with digitally and if you find the practice of data collection abhorrent and don’t want to use websites that do so, then you’re the weird one who has a LOT of society’s services unavailable to you.

im not going to even touch on the psychological effects that facebook and social media have on people other than to ONCE AGAIN, say they are very real and deeply fucked up.

by the way check out haveibeenpwned. enter your email and it’ll check against databases to see if your email has been on recent dumps. i have been. lately there have been a few older accounts of mine that have been breached and it’s terrifying.

fuck jesse eisenberg man he fucked over spiderman crazy

fuck faang. fuck big tech. fuck data collection. btw edward snowden is a hero. fuck all of this.

104: The future: man we’re in for it. i am not optimistic about it at all. too much tech progression / not enough foresight / expansion/globalization of the world / global warming / political and economic issues are all coming to a head to make the world a fucking disaster.

96: Changed a diaper: never done it! i am not around children often.

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: having a vague idea of where things are locally. im very bad with directions.

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: answered already.

84: People call me: yeesa, apparently. i have a fair amount of nicknames but i just call myself teresa.

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: sure haven’t though i deserve one

80: The first person i talked to today was: soph because she wakes up at a normal goddamn time so i’ll sometimes have a text from her from a few hrs ago

76: Right now I am talking to: milo and a discord server im in for a group of friends i made when i was applying to college. though i havent responded in quite a while since i went on my angry facebook rant.

74: I have/will get a job: well i HAD a job for the beginning of the summer when i was a TA but i do not any more as that was first summer semester only. hopefully in the fall i’ll have a job as a TA again but who knows. and then after that when i graduate i hope hope hope hope hope i will have a job lined up.

72: Today: woke up. made a plum smoothie. played minecraft. took a nap. here i am. it’s all very riveting.

70: Next Weekend: it’ll happen for sure. odds are i will be waking up and eating food and coming on the internet and chatting with friends and doing a bit of writing and trying to learn a bit more html.

68: The worst sound in the world: answered already.

66: People that make you happy: will roland lmao.

64: My friends are: well it’s basically the same people i tagged in my last post on people who make me happy.

62: My School: you tryin to doxx me? it’s alright. not the best for my major. and also stupidly trying to reopen for the fall because theyre greedy and idiots. it was like my 5th choice school but it is what it is.....

60: I lose all respect for people who: already answered

58: Your hair color is: black as fuck. im east asian.

56: Favorite web site: controversial but archive of our own dot org i guess. i believe in their mission and like how they have advocated for fans and have created a fan-owned space on the internet. they’re not perfect but i overall support them.

54: The worst pain I was ever in was: answered already

52: My room is: a time capsule of what i liked in late middle school/early high school.

50: Where would you like to be: im fine where i am. maybe visiting friends though. i would like to Hang With Them and Do Fun Activities.

48: Ever been in love: who’s to say....... what is love? (baby don’t hurt me). but for real the concept of love is weird to me, especially romantic love. i don’t know. i’ve certainly obsessed over people. i’ve noticed i kind of “pick people” to have crushes on. i can’t really say why. but then it creates a feedback loop of i pay more attention to them -> i think more about them -> i like them more. so i’ve made conscious decisions that have lead to me obsessing over people.

46: More guy friends or girl friends: girl but that’s just because people in fandom spaces tend to be women and most of my friends ive made through fandom.

44: One person that you wish you could see right now: kaity is coming to my town but we cant see each other because of a pandemic so im kinda fucking miffed about that. i didn’t get to see maria before she left my state so i’m also miffed about that.

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: lmaooooo no. i would just like to be satisfied with my life. would like to see friends. do fun things with them.

40: Last person I got mad at: idk im not generally a mad person. mark zuckerberg probably.

38: I wish I was a professional: as in i suddenly have all the skills and talent needed to be a professional? i think a director &|| writer tbh. i would love to have the Creative Vision necessary to come up with dope ideas AND translate what i have in mind into real life. i would love the ability to be able to tell compelling stories that mean a lot to people.

32: Athlete: lmao if it was 2008 or 2012 i would ahve said ryan lochte but nevermind. idk. maybe katie ledecky.

24: Movie: am not much one for movies...... star trek 2009.

16: Book: i don’t know how to read.

8: Yankee candle scent: idk about yankee candle specifically but i love the smell of apple.

#not rt #teresa answers stuff #Anonymous

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